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BOOKS FOR SUMMER READING, 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 



P?" Harper & Brothers will send either of the following works by mail or express, 
postage or freight prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on re- 
ceipt of the price. 

jt^~ Harper's New and Enlarged Catalogue, 300 pp. %vo, being a descriptive 
list of about 3000 volumes, with a Complete Analytical Index, sent by mail 
on receipt of Ten Cents. 



STARBOARD AND PORT: the "Nettie" 
Along Shore. A Summers Yacht Cruise 
along the Coasts of Maine and Labrador. By 
George H. Hepworth. Illustrated. i2mo, 
Cloth, $\ 75. 

LOTUS ^EATING, A Summer Book. By 
George William Curtis. Illustrated. i2mo, 
Cloth, $\ 50. 

PRUE AND I. By George William Cur- 
Tis. i2mo, Cloth, ^i 50. 

STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND 
AND ITALY, By John Richard Green, 
Author of "A Short History of the English 
People." Post 8vo, Cloth, $\ 75; Uncut 
edges and gilt tops, $2 ob. 

THE CATSKILL FAIRIES, By Virginia 
W. Johnson. Illustrated by Alfred Fred- 
ericks. Square 8vo, Illuminated Cloth, Gilt 
Edges, $3 GO. 

PRAIRIE AND FOREST: a Description 
of the Game of North America, with Person- 
al Adventures in their Pursuit. By Parker 
Gillmore. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1 50. 



2 ' ' Books for Summer Reading. ' ' 

NOOKS AND CORNERS OF THE NEW 
ENGLAND COAST. By Samuel Adams 
Drake. With numerous Illustrations. Square 
8vo, Cloth, $3 50. 

FARM BALLADS. By Will Carleton. 
Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, ^2 00; Gilt 
Edges, $2 50. 

FARM LEGENDS. By Will Carleton. 
Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, $2 00; Gilt 
Edges, $2 50. 

/ GO A'FISHLNG. By William C. Prime. 
Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 50; Half Calf, $4 25. 

THE OLD HOUSE BY THE RIVER. 

By William C Prime. i2mo. Cloth, $1 50. 

LATER YEARS. By William C. Prime. 

i2mo, Cloth, $1 50; Half Calf, $3 25. 

UNDER THE TREES. By Samuel Iren^- 
us Prime, D.D. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. 

FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS, 
By Genio C. Scott. A New Edition, con- 
taining Parts Six and Seven, on Southern 
and Miscellaneous Fishes. With numerous 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $3 50. 

THE FISHING TOURIST: Angler's Guide 
and Reference Book. By Charles Hallock, 
Secretary of the " Blooming-Grove Park As- 
sociation." Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 

%2 00. 



STARBOARD AND PORT 



THE "NETTIE" ALONG SHORE. 



By GEORGE H. HEPWORTH. 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1876. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



<^°'" 
^^i^ 






TO 

AMBROSE A. RANNEY, Esq., 

(RULOFF) 

WHO HAS BEEN TO ME FOR NEARLY TWENTY YEARS WHAT MAN 
RARELY FINDS, AND WHAT HE PRIZES WHEN HE FINDS, 

A TRUE FRIEND; 
AND HIS BROTHER, J. W. RANNEY, M.D., 

EQUALLY MY FRIEND, 

Jf JDeMcate tljis jBook. 

G. H. H. 



PREFACE. 



In a work so unpretending as this a Preface is 
hardly needed. My book would never have seen 
the light but for the kindness of friends. They list- 
ened so patiently to my repeated recitals of advent- 
ure that I was tempted to seek a larger audience. I 
have had three objects in view in elaborating my log: 
First, the happiness it always gives me to talk about 
the ocean ; second, the hope of giving pleasure to 
others ; and, third, my desire to induce yachtsmen to 
venture into blue water. If I fail in the last, I shall 
fall back cheerfully to the other two ; and if the sec- 
ond be unattainable, then the pleasure I have had in 
writing the book remains, and I am quite content. 

I desire to give public expression of my gratitude 
to the Rev. M. Harvey, of St. John's, Newfoundland, 
who sent me maps and public documents concern- 
ing an island which offers special inducements to the 
angler, the hunter, and the explorer — which island I 
hope to visit some day, when I shall be under still 
greater obligations for his kindness ; also to the Mas- 



vi Preface, 

sachusetts Arms Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, 
Mass., which very generously presented me with a 
couple of the justly celebrated Maynard rifles for 
my expedition. I had the pleasure of using them 
on some small game, and am perfectly willing to 
trust them against larger game when the opportu- 
nity shall present itself. 

And so I launch my little craft into what I hope 
will prove to be the sea of a kind and friendly crit- 
icism. 

G. H. H. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Getting Ready n 

CHAPTER II. 
A Splendid Run 28 

CHAPTER III. 
Bits of History 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
Among the Rocks in a Fog 72 

CHAPTER V. 
Trout and Mosquitoes , 87 

CHAPTER VI. 
Larks and a Chat loi 

CHAPTER VII. 
A Sand-bank and a Fight 114 



viii Table of Contents, 

CHAPTER VIII. 



FA6B 



Scenery and Fly-making 138 

CHAPTER IX. 
A Salmon and a Fox 155 

CHAPTER X. 
Along Prince Edward's 172 

CHAPTER XL 
Chaleur and Perc^ 190 

CHAPTER XII. 
Indian Canoes 207 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Enough, and Home 221 



" Thalatta ! Thalatta ! 
I greet thee, thou Ocean Eternal ! 
I give thee ten thousand times greeting, 

With heart all exulting. 

As, ages since, hailed thee 

Those ten thousand Greek hearts — 
Fate-conquering, home -yearning. 
World-renowned Greek hearts. 

"The billows were rolling, 
Were rolling and roaring, 
The sun poured downward incessant, 
The flickering rose-lights ; 
Affrighted, the flocks of the sea-mews 
Fluttered away, loud-screaming ; 

The steeds were stamping, the shields were clanging, 
And far, like a shout of victory, echoed 
Thalatta ! Thalatta !" 

Heine. 

« Thou Ocean Eternal, I greet thee ! 
Like the tongue of my home is the dash of thy waters ! 
Like dreams of my childhood now sparkle before me 
All the wide-curving waves of thy rolling dominions." 

Heine. 

" Good-bye to Pain and Care ! I take 
Mine ease to-day ; 
Here where these sunny waters break. 
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake 
All burdens from my heart, all weary thoughts away." 

Whittier. 



STARBOARD AND PORT. 



CHAPTER I. 

GETTING READY. 




HERE is no love so absorbing as 
a love of the ocean, and there are 
few pleasures in life half so sweet 
as drifting on the current or fac- 
ing the gale in a trim, well-built, 
and weatherly yacht. The land 
has its charms indeed, but blue water is a constant and 
soul-satisfying fascination. In the landscape you have 
always the same outlines, however various may be the 
light and shadow, the gloom and sunshine which fill up 
the picture ; but on the ocean the scene is changed not 
only with every change of wind, but with the ever- 
varying force of the wind. In the morning you have 
the gentle zephyr, just filling your sails and curling the 
water into little fantastic ripples which rise and fall on 
the regular swell with the perfect rhythm of poetry, 
and in the afternoon a heavy blow from the east, com- 
ing like a giant with his whip and driving the fright- 
ened waves before him until they rise from the surface 
in snow-capped ridges, all the while muttering their 



12 Starboard and Port. 

deep -voiced mournful music, which just colors your 
consciousness of the grandeur of the picture with a pale 
shade of fear. At one time the clouds seem to be look- 
ing at themselves as though the sea were a mirror, and 
you watch the shadows as they play at hide-and-seek 
with something of the interest with which you watch 
the moods of a child's face ; then from horizon to hori- 
zon, unbroken by intruding island or rock, stretches the 
sombre gray which makes you feel that Nature herself 
is sad. At another time the sky, absolutely cloudless, 
shines like burnished silver, into which has been thrown 
the faintest possible reflection of blue, while the heat 
pours down with torrid power; then you rise and fall 
on the watery undulations, and your reefing-points rap 
the sails with a conscious impatience. You are remind- 
ed of the Ancient Mariner, and imagine yourself in a 
painted ship on a painted ocean. Ah ! there is nothing 
half so sweet in life as a full, deep, and open-souled com- 
munion with the sea. 

It seems to me, however, that yachting in America 
has hardly reached the dignity it possesses in England. 
We Americans play on the water, while the English live 
on it. It is with us the sport of an afternoon, and con- 
sists, in its most extended expression, of a trip along 
the shore of Long Island. Our craft seldom venture 
on long voyages, and would do themselves little credit 
in a northeast gale. They have generally very graceful 
lines, great breadth of beam, which makes them roomy 
and comfortable under deck, but are often so overload- 
ed with spars and canvas that they are unfit for rough 
outside work. In our whole fleet there are hardly half 
a dozen boats which an old sailor would pronounce 



Getting Ready, 13 

snugly trimmed. The main -boom runs outboard as 
though the mast had fallen over the stern, and when 
the yacht is flying before a ten-knot breeze the foot 
of the mainsail slaps the water, and makes such a swash 
that all the comfort of sailing is changed into anxiety 
for the rigging. Our topmasts, too, run up to such an 
incredible height that when the boat begins to roll in 
a sea-way it seems as though she would never stop until 
she had jerked out her spars. 

I am ready to admit that our American yachts are 
the most graceful pieces of marine architecture in exist- 
ence. Nothing can exceed the beauty of a regatta off 
Sandy Hook in a six or eight knot breeze. The white- 
winged craft skim over the water like the flight of gulls, 
while the hulls lose themselves in clouds of spotless 
canvas. It is an infinite pity, however, that their mis- 
sion ends when the wind increases, and that before the 
stiff breeze which the fisherman or the pilot-boat only 
laughs at, they creep under a lee for safety. The truth 
is, they are built to look at, but not to last. That part 
of the hull which is seen is carefully looked after, but 
that part which is under the water-line is left to neglect. 
The average yacht is hermetically sealed by the builder, 
and ventilation regarded as entirely unnecessary. The 
Gloucester fisherman pickles his vessel, and leaves air- 
holes in every possible corner. He fills the space be- 
tween the plank and the ceiling with salt clear up to 
the deck, and as a consequence his craft when fifteen 
or twenty years old is as solid as when she came off the 
stocks. Our yachtsmen forget that a boat is like the 
human lungs — it must have air, or it will surely rot. A 
well-known ship-builder told me the other day that 



14 Starboard and Port 

most of our yachts which are more than five years old 
have passed their usefulness. They are likely to be 
pricked both at the stern and in the run, the two places 
in a boat which it is most difficult to ventilate. I have 
known a single race to so strain a yacht that it became 
necessary to haul her up on the ways and put the 
caulkers on her bottom. The truth is, we are consumed 
by a madness for speed, and every thing is sacrificed to 
that one quality. To make the best time is all we care 
for. We can run all round an English yacht in fair 
weather and smooth water, but when we are caught in 
a gale, and have to lie-to for a couple of days, the En- 
glishman eats his meals in serenity, assured that his 
boat will ride it out, while we chew the cud of discon- 
tent and look wistfully toward home. It has made me 
groan sometimes to see a fleet outside of the Hook tak- 
ing in its kites or luffing up to reef in nothing more 
than an honest wholesale breeze, while an outward- 
bound pilot-boat, carrying all its canvas, bowled along 
as though it were only playing with the wind. 

The crowning defect, and one which we are begin- 
ning to acknowledge, is the shape of the bows. They 
are so sharp that they not only cut through the water 
when it is smooth, but they also cut into it and under 
it when there is any sea-way on. The only thing that 
holds the head of a yacht up in rough weather is its 
preposterous bowsprit and jib-boom. The fisherman is 
so fashioned above the water-line forward that when 
she dives into a sea she has wood enough to keep her 
on top of the water. There is so much wood and so 
much breadth by the cat-heads that when she plunges, 
she instantly rises, while the yacht, which has no wood 



Getting Ready, 15 

forward, and is as sharp as a knife, plunges and stays 
there until her deck as far aft as the fore-rigging is all 
under water. As an inevitable consequence, the whole 
head-gear is endangered at a time when the pilot-boat 
goes laughingly by with dry decks. 

A few of our larger craft are notable exceptions to 
this rule. The Sappho^ the Dauntless, the Enchaiitress, 
the Dreadnought, and some others, are perhaps not 
open to the criticisms I have made. And yet even 
these yachts are built so sharp that in an ordinary chop 
sea outside they run their noses under water in a very 
disagreeable way, imperiling their whole head -gear. 
They are all something over two hundred tons' bur- 
den, cost almost fabulous sums, and ought to be able 
to round the Horn as comfortably and safely as a full- 
rigged ship ; and yet they are not the vessels in which 
an old salt would feel secure. It is not the mahogany, 
rosewood, plate-glass, and general extravagance of out- 
fit which frightens him, but the low bow and rail, the 
wedge-like prow which lets the water come aboard in- 
stead of dashing it aside, and which is so thin and 
sharp that there is scarcely any lifting quality in the 
boat except when the jib-boom and bowsprit strike the 
wave and buoy her up. Any yacht that measures a 
hundred tons, that has seventy-five feet of deck-room, 
ought to be able to go the wide world over, and to 
take whatever might come. With lower masts and 
shorter spars the sails could be snugly trimmed close to 
the deck ; and though something might be lost in speed, 
an enormous gain of safety would give an enviable and 
manly dignity to American yachting. Besides — and 
this is a consideration not to be despised — we should 



1 6 Starboard and Port, 

become a hardier and more venturesome race of boat- 
men, and spend our summers in distant waters, and in 
the acquisition of marine prowess — a quality of char- 
acter in which we are sadly deficient. Long Island 
Sound is the disease of which we are dying. To that are 
we indebted for that evil invention, the centre-board. 
It has taught us to dread Cape Cod ; and with its 
smoother water has taken the life out of our love for 
the ocean, and substituted the fascinations of a mill- 
pond. We crawl along inshore, and run for a harbor 
when the wind blows a reefing breeze. The play 
of a coaster or lumberman is the agony of a yacht. 
We are oppressed with the consciousness that our boats 
are not weatherly; that we have paid too much for 
brass and mahogany, and too little for good solid oak ; 
that we have sacrificed every thing to a knife-like bow 
and fifteen knots an hour ; and so we shake the rope's 
end in the face of a Banker when we pass him this 
side of Newport, but dare not for our lives follow him 
to the big waves of the fishing-ground. 

Now, if the only object of yachting is a few hours' 
pleasure, that end is fully met by the present condi- 
tion of affairs. It is certainly delightful, when one 
is sitting on the piazza of his sea-side home, to gaze at 
the graceful boat riding safely at anchor a hundred 
yards from shore. It tingles one's nervous system to 
look at the trig uniforms of the sailors, and hear the 
mellow tones of the bell when it strikes the hour. 
Besides, there is a certain glamour about owning a yacht 
— every body regards it as a bit of fairy-land, and looks 
with inexpressible envy on the Yacht Club buttons and 
the gay colors of the signal code, and the wreathing 



Getting Ready, i*j 

smoke as the miniature gun announces that the great 
sun has set for the day, but proposes to rise and smile 
on the well-painted craft on the morrow. I am willing 
to confess that all this is exceedingly pleasant, but 
after all it is only a sort of fresh-water experience, and 
after a while one tires of it. It does very well for the 
first year, but after that the appetite is cloyed, and 
we need something more stimulating. 

I have a strong conviction that yachting may be 
made, and will yet become, a very much more impor- 
tant matter than it is at present. It is only a pastime 
just now, but years hence it will become an element of 
national strength. What West Point is for the land, 
yachting ought to be for the water — an education that 
may some time stand the country in good stead. Just 
now our yacht -owners leave their business at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, take a turn round Southwest 
Spit, or possibly run out to the Lightship, and that is 
all. Their yachts, like their carriages, are governed by 
a hired man. Now I do not intend to discourage the 
pursuit of pleasure, or to find unnecessary fault. I am 
simply trying to look at matters squarely, and to tell 
the plain truth. I will not go so far as some writers, and 
say that no man has a right to ride unless he can drive 
his own horses, and none a right to sail unless, at least 
in an emergency, he can command his own craft ; but 
I have a very earnest feeling that we are playing at 
yachting, and reaching after no special good. If we 
can get nothing more out of our boats than an occa- 
sional sail among the drift-wood of the harbor, then we 
will be content with that ; but if we can be roused to 
something better and more worthy of our national 



1 8 Starboard and Port 

prestige, then welcome the voice that scolds for our 
good. 

I think I see what this pleasure may become in the 
future, and am somewhat impatient perhaps for the 
consummation. Our yacht models have in times past 
had a great influence on the merchant marine. They 
have put to the blush those old square-headed vessels 
which used literally to fight their way across the ocean, 
and one by one they have disappeared from our waters. 
Now we have ships more comely in shape, more fleet 
of foot, and equally useful for purposes of trade. But 
of late years yachts have become toys, and lost their 
prestige as teachers. They have very little, if any 
thing, to do with progress in marine architecture, and , 
are looked upon as simply an extravagance in cost, 
shape, and canvas. 

I am looking forward hopefully to the time when our 
fleet will not anchor at Newport. The Sound is the 
primary school, while Cape Cod is the high school of 
American yachtsmen. We have solved the problem 
of speed, and can shoot over smooth water like a ri- 
cochetting bullet. With centre-board up when running 
before the wind, we can beat the world. The next 
question to be settled, and the far more important one, 
is the question of weatherly qualities. If we should 
dare to run our fleet into the teeth of a downright 
northeaster, we might rattle every thing to pieces, but 
we should return wiser for the experience, and, I doubt 
not, resolved on a radical change. There is so much 
that is admirable in this national determination to do 
the best thing that can be done, that I feel very sure 
the whole character of yachting is to suffer a change 



Getting Ready, 19 

of base in the next ten years. We shall yet have the 
best sea-boats as well as the fastest craft of which any 
people can boast, and we shall yet be as proud of the 
way in which our vessels will fight a gale as we are 
now of the swiftness with which they glide over 
smooth water. 

The ideal model is in the future. The English 
yacht is altogether too clumsy, and the American alto- 
gether too tender. The Englishman is narrow and 
deep ; the American wide and flat. It is not impossible 
to combine the best qualities of these two styles, and 
then we shall leave the Sound and take to deep water. 

I sent the Nettie, late in June, to New London, to 
have her masts cut down and her main-boom shorten- 
ed. The sticks were preposterously long, and made 
her roll badly in a heavy swell, while the main-boom 
ran outboard so far that, when the wind was on the 
quarter and she was running free, the end of it dipped 
as she swayed, and threatened to carry away the mast- 
head. She was in good trim for racing in smooth wa- 
ter, and had many a time shown her wake to her rivals, 
so it went hard with me to alter her proportions ; but 
I thought of the Nova Scotia coast, and the " harri- 
canes" which seem to have their own way with our 
stanch fishing-smacks even, and concluded to sacrifice 
sorriething to comfort and safety. She would have to 
meet whatever might come, and would need to be 
strong in every timber and line. She was carefully ex- 
amined in the hull, all her running rigging was over- 
hauled, and every thing done to fit her for the hard 
work which lay before us. 

We went on board in Boston harbor July 6th. The 



20 Starboard and Port. 

yacht looked ready for any thing, and seemed to have 
a half consciousness that she was on the edge of a new 
experience, and that great things were expected. It is 
no small task to prepare for a voyage. Our steward 
was busy getting the saloon and state-rooms in readi- 
ness, and it devolved upon me to buy the provisions. 
Never having had to look after a large family, I made 
a great many blunders. I sent Algar in one direction 
to search for water and ice ; Bertric in another direc- 
tion, to purchase flour and potatoes ; Stigand in still 
another, to buy meat for the hands and steaks for the 
cabin ; and reserved to myself the duty of gathering 
together the odds and ends which go so far to make up 
the comfort of a cruise. My little army defiled from 
the wharf, and soon each individual needle was finding 
a different way through the human haystack. In the 
course of a couple of hours spent in a weary search 
after mustard and gherkins and fancy crackers, I found 
my slow and hot way along the lower part of the city, 
my arms piled full of small bundles, which seemed to 
have no coherency whatever ; for first one parcel would 
drop, involving the necessity of laying down nearly all 
the rest in order to pick that one up, and then another 
parcel, which did not appear to enjoy its proximity to 
its neighbor, started off from the top of the pile, as a 
small avalanche from a mountain-top, and slid down to 
the sidewalk, bringing up with such a force that the 
paper burst, and half the contents were spilled. The 
small boy behind me, who was carrying his bundles 
very comfortably in a basket, seemed to enjoy the ex- 
perience more than I did. If it had been cool, I could 
have kept my temper; but with the mercury among 



Getting Ready, 



21 




the nineties, it was more than human patience could 
bear ; so, objurgating that steward in a mild set of epi- 
thets which were more indicative of sorrow than of 
anger, I sat down on the doorstep of a warehouse, with 
the impression that all inanimate things are totally de- 
praved. Just then a troop of hangers-on, looking out 
for a petty job, discovered my predicament. They 
rushed at me, vociferously demanding the privilege of 
carrying my bundles for me. A half-dozen of them 
grabbed a parcel each, and in single file, a stately and 
august procession, they marched down to the boat, 



22 Starboard and Port 

while I loitered behind, a victim of untoward circum- 
stances. After the bundles had been delivered to the 
sailors, mostly in a state of dilapidation, each bundle 
having done its best to leak itself away, my convoys 
gathered in a semicircle about me, and asked remuner- 
ation for their valuable services. I gave them a quar- 
ter apiece, and found that the articles aggregated a 
very handsome sum, of which the cartage was the prin- 
cipal item. 

Bertric had arrived in a very moist condition, but 
with his freight in good order, since, with characteristic 
caution, he had hired an express wagon. We waited 
impatiently for thirty minutes the arrival of the other 
two members of the company, when I indiscreetly sug- 
gested the propriety of entering upon a tour of discov- 
ery. It seemed a very simple thing to do, and also an 
act of friendship toward our comrades, who might be 
lost amid the tangled streets of the city. So I started 
in the direction which Algar ought to have taken, while 
Bertric went in search of Stigand. We afterward 
learned from the sailors that Algar and Stigand arrived 
a few minutes after our departure, and immediately set 
out in search of us. An hour and a half was thus 
spent in a very successful game of hide-and-seek, which 
would have been tolerable if our object had been to 
escape one another, but which was entirely unsatisfac- 
tory since our object was to find one another. 

Let me, however, draw the curtain of forgetfulness 
over that season of bitter wandering, and come to the 
pleasant fact that at three o'clock, after the wind, which 
had been favorable all the morning, had died out alto- 
gether, and the tide had begun to flow, we met with a 



Getting Ready, 23 

fond embrace, our list of provisions was complete, and 
our tempers in the sulkiest possible mood. 

We were rowed out to the yacht, which lay a couple 
of chains off, passed the stores to the steward, and 
unanimously expressed the opinion that the whole 
experience, though somewhat novel, was not on the 
whole of the most agreeable kind. The boats were 
swung to the davits, the anchor was hove short, the 
sail -stops were unbound, the halyards were manned, 
and the white canvas swayed up to the merry song of 
the sailors. We were ready at last. 

Just then a light air filled the sails, the anchor was 
hove chock a-block, the order was given to up with the 
jib, and the Nettie, hesitating a moment, as though to 
say good-bye to friendly waters, shot away from her 
moorings, and we were off. 

Boston has certainly a picturesque harbor. The city, 
as seen from a distance, is very attractive ; and the isl- 
ands, which serve as so many breakwaters, each one 
forming a lee, help to make a very impressive picture. 
We glided by Fort Independence, and the never-to-be- 
finished fort on Governor's Island, by Long Island, with 
the Inner Light on its eastern front, by Nix Mate, and 
so out by way of Broad Sound. We were then fairly at 
sea, of which fact we were reminded by the gentle un- 
dulation which was the remnant of the last heavy blow. 

There was hardly any breeze, and our progress was 
consequently slow. We made only about four knots, 
but the night was superb. The great army of stars 
came out, crowding and hustling one another as 
though they had human passions, and were all bent on 
an eager mission. The lights along the coast slowly 



24 Starboard and Port, 

faded into the dim distance : first Nahant, then Bever- 
ly, then Lynn, then Gloucester, after which we made 
for the double lights of Cape Ann. Once by those, 
we could lay our course for Star Island Light, with the 
lights off Portsmouth on the far larboard. It seemed 
impossible to sleep, so we sat up on deck, admiring the 
scene, each in his own way. 

The heavens seem very friendly to one on the water, 
and the sailor never tires of watching the stars. The 
man at the wheel generally picks out a prominent one 
to steer by, only casting an occasional glance at the 
compass to assure himself that the two guides cor- 
respond. It is not very easy for thoughtful men to 
have a rattling time at night on board a vessel. They 
may scintillate occasionally, throwing off a spark of 
wit, but the integral influence of the ocean is subduing. 
It leads to reverie and introspection. Ruloff spent the 
evening forward among the sailors, listening to the ex- 
periences which they delight to narrate, and almost al- 
ways in a quiet and impressive sort of way. The rest 
of us were seated in the cockpit, talking with the man 
at the wheel, and making plans for the future. 

Our view of the comet was something wonderful. 
There was a thin haze for a few degrees above the 
horizon, but for a couple of hours the mysterious mes- 
senger held his equal way through the clear ether, and 
showed his magnificent proportions to great advan- 
tage. A nodule of fire served as a kind of figure-head, 
from which swept that amazing trail of light at which 
a wondering world was looking. While I sat absorbed 
and silent. Ah Boo, our Mongolian, to whose keeping 
we had intrusted the important duty of overseeing the 



Getting Ready. 



25 




culinary department, emerged from his laboratory to 
get a breath of air. He stared about the sky until he 
came to the comet, and then his surprise and wonder 
reached their climax. The erratic messenger was evi- 
dently a novelty to his untutored mind, and he broke 
forth in an apostrophe, which may have been very elo- 
quent in Chinese, but which was sufficiently unintelli- 
gible as English. 

" Come, come !" he said, as he took me by the sleeve 
and hurried me across the deck to the fore - rigging, 
" Mr. Hepper, see ! star all in a smoke of fire ! What 
the matter? you know?" 

I assured the simple fellow that I really did not 
know the exact condition of affairs up there ; when, see- 

B 



26 Starboard and Port 

ing that I was undisturbed, he concluded that there 
was no occasion for immediate alarm, and quietly emp- 
tied his bucket, which he had been most pertinaciously 
and unconsciously holding, and, with more subdued 
eloquence in an unknown tongue, re-entered the abyss 
of the cook-room, and was lost to view. 

That same evening I saw a more brilliant meteor 
than it had ever been my lot to behold. I suppose 
phenomena of equal brilliancy are often visible in other 
quarters of the globe, but this one was so startlingly 
bright that I was amazed and delighted. It was just 
above the starboard bow. I was looking up in medi- 
tative mood, when I saw what I took to be the fiery 
ball of a rocket. It was a node of white light, follow- 
ing just about the parabola which a rocket would nat- 
urally take. After it had traversed what seemed to be 
two or three degrees, it suddenly burst, and went out 
in darkness, leaving behind small pear-shaped brilliants, 
which remained for several seconds, and then disap- 
peared. 

And so the silent, still night wore on. At about one 
in the morning we passed the Cape Ann lights, giving 
them a good berth, out of respect to a ledge which 
lies off E.S.E. from Thatcher's Island a couple of miles, 
and then laid our course a little to the westward of 
Star Island, when, overcome with sleep, we all went to 
bed. 

The Nettie is a very roomy boat, and though there 
were six of us in the cabin, we were all comfortably 
bestowed. Ruloff took the starboard state-room, fill- 
ing it with guns and fishing-rods ; I had the port 
state - room, with wash - room attached ; while Algar, 



Getting Ready, 27 

Stigand, Bertric, and Fletch occupied spacious berths 
in the main saloon. 

In the morning when we awoke we were riding at 
anchor among familiar and friendly craft, in front of 
the Appledore House, at the Isles of Shoals. 



28 



Starboard and Port. 



^^"^^^ 



CHAPTER II. 

A SPLENDID RUN. 

I never think without a thrill 
Of wild and pure delight 
Of all the leagues of blue, blue sea, 
Which I have sailed o'er merrily 
In day, or dead of night." — Faber. 




HE Isles of Shoals consist of a group 
of bare rocks, which evidently re- 
belled against the geological tyran- 
ny of the past, and succeeded in 
just getting their heads above wa- 
ter. They are very unique in appearance, having been 
doomed, apparently in punishment for their disobedi- 
ence in not staying below, to have few of the peculiar 
features of ordinary terra firnia. They are no more 
nor less than a reef which has pushed its way up above 
the surface, and which pays for its rashness by being 
compelled to suffer the same jagged and angular and 
irregular appearance which its less successful neigh- 
bors in the depths possess. There is but one tree on 
the group, and that shoots up through the piazza of 
the Appledore Hotel, as though the islands were, after 
a sort, unfriendly to it. 

Compelled to postpone our start on account of the 
fog, we resigned ourselves with good grace to the 
pleasures of this novel spot for twenty-four hours. I 



A Splendid Run, 29 

was myself quite at home there, for I had spent many 
a week in roving about on Star, Smutty Nose, Lon- 
doners, and Duck, and in a thousand and one excur- 
sions after all sorts of fish. Of course I hastened at 
once to pay my regards to Mrs. Thaxter, who holds a 
kind of court in her cottage during the summer sea- 
son, and whose name has become a household word 
with those who love the songs of the sea. In her 
poems there is the peculiar and refreshing fragrance 
and exhilaration of salt air. She is exceedingly ac- 
cessible, and has a genial welcome for all the crowd 
of great and little who pay their tribute of respect to 
her genius. 

In the afternoon we all went over to Duck, about a 
mile from Appledore, a spot that is redolent of the 
memory of shipwrecks and ghouls, and all kinds of un- 
canny adventures. We took our lines with us, and 
caught sea-perch until we were tired of hauling them 
in, and then loaded our guns for medrakes. They are 
a very cunning bird, and can be shot, in this place at 
least, only by stratagem. When we landed, the picket- 
guard of these beauties, whose wings we were in search 
of, gave the alarm, and soon the whole army, scattered 
in graceful groups over the island, took flight, and flew 
in circles above us, screaming out their defiance. High- 
er and higher they soared, until they seemed but specks 
of white above our heads. We sat down on the rocks 
to wait for their descent, and our patience was soon re- 
warded by seeing first one and then another lower his 
flight, as though prompted by a dangerous curiosity to 
see who we were. 

When they were within a reasonable shooting dis- 



30 Starboard and Port 

tance I let off a barrel, with the expectation of doing 
execution at the next shot. At the explosion the birds 
were apparently convinced either that we had no more 
powder or that we were bad marksmen, and that they 
were consequently safe, so they fluttered at short range 
all around us. That is the time to do your work. 
Three discharges, and three birds fell. The whole 
flock then gathered to see what was the matter, and a 
couple more discharges gave us all the birds we want- 
ed. We despoiled them of their wings, and after a 
pleasant row heard the welcome call to supper on the 
part of our Mongolian. 

On Saturday morning we let off our guns as a good- 
bye to the islanders, who were not yet up, and started 
for Boone Island, expecting to lay our course from that 
point to Seal Island, on the S.W. end of Nova Scotia. 
We had about four hundred miles before us, with all 
the delightful uncertainties of a long trip at sea. The 
wind, which is always persistently wrong, favored us as 
we sailed away from the Shoals, and then left us when 
we were off Boone. All that day there was a dead 
calm. We tried to break the monotony of ennui by 
fishing, but only dogfish rewarded our toil. We 
brought out the checker-board, and challenged each 
other ; we listened to sailors' yarns, and told yarns 
ourselves ; but, somehow, that regular and awful swell 
which came from the eastward unfitted us for long en- 
joyment of any thing, and produced a certain restless- 
ness which is a symptom of inward distress. Boone 
Island seemed to be a magnet, and we a toy vessel 
with which it was playing. At ten in the morning it 
stood to the eastward ; at twelve it stood to the south- 



A Splendid Run, 31 

east ; at three in the afternoon it stood to the south ; 
at five it stood to the southwest ; and at sundown it 
stood almost directly west. We had spent the whole 
day in sailing, or rather in drifting around it, and were 
never so thankful as when darkness shut down and 
covered up the tower. But even then the light shone 
across the waters at us with an unnatural brilliancy, to 
remind us that it still held us in place. 

"And evening's breath, wandering here and there 
Over the quivering surface of the stream, 
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream." 

Shelley. 

There is nothing quite so demoralizing as a dead 
calm. A blow is exhilarating, exciting, and calls up the 
nervous energy of a man ; but a calm cuts deep into his 
nature, and lets out every thing in his soul that is sour. 
We were not exactly seasick, but we were miserable. 
When Ah Boo, who was as chipper as ever, called us to 
dinner, we answered the summons in a sluggish sort of 
way, as though it were a matter of indifference to us 
whether we ever ate again or not. We went into the 
saloon, however, and most positively asserted to each 
other our entire freedom from any disagreeable symp- 
toms whatever. We did our utmost to be cheerful, 
but there was very evidently a serious cast to all our 
thoughts. When the soup was spilled in some one's 
lap as the Nettie rolled, no one laughed ; and if you had 
looked into our eyes at that moment you would have 
discovered a certain vacancy, as though the interior 
man were busy looking after his own welfare, and had 
no interest in external things. Indeed, an Atlantic swell, 
when there is no breeze to steady the vessel, is entirely 



32 



Starboard and Port. 




sui generis, and must be experienced to be understood. 
No description can do it justice. It rolls the boat in 
the direction of the starboard, reserving a faint lurch 

toward the lar- 
y — f^^^^^^^'y^^^ /f board; then, revers- 
^^ ^^^ ing the motion, it 

rolls the boat to- 
ward the larboard 
quarter, giving it at 
the same time a 
lurch toward the 
starboard ; and at 
last, as though in 
a quandary, or suf- 
fering from inde- 
cision, it makes a 
tangled snarl of every conceivable kind of motion, the 
general and total effect of which on the nervous sys- 
tem, and especially on the digestive apparatus, is far, I 
may say, very far from agreeable. 

When in their normal condition, men on board ship 
are gregarious. They make friends quickly, and, getting 
together in select groups, chat the hours away as easily 
as a rivulet ripples over the stones ; but when the con- 
dition of affairs is such as I have described, they avoid 
each other with a mutual persistency that is very sug- 
gestive. A man who feels every time the vessel sinks 
under his feet as though a sudden vacuum had been 
produced in the region of the stomach, and who puts 
his hands on that part of his anatomy with an instinct- 
ive dread lest it may have been displaced, is generally 
in such a reflective mood that he does not take readily 



A Splendid Run. 33 

to the cheering words of those who have been hardened 
to that experience, but with a forced and somewhat 
sickly smile expresses a wish to be undisturbed while 
he follows out a train of abstruse thought. 

Well, at last the day wore out, and the time arrived 
to make up the slate for the night, and to set the watch. 
I always work when on board the yacht, taking my turn 
at the fore and my trick at the wheel, and the an- 
nouncement of this purpose decided the others to do 
the same. It fell to Bertric and myself to watch on 
deck from twelve to six, and so I lay down at nine for 
a nap. When I was called, I heard the rain pattering 
on the deck, while the same old rat-tat-too of the reef- 
ing-points showed that the calm had not ended. I 
walked the deck for a couple of hours, covered all up in 
water-proof, when I heard a noise forward which at- 
tracted my attention. At that time the Nettie was 
rolling in the most reckless way possible. The main- 
boom had a strong guy on it, but in spite of all it slat- 
ted until it seemed as though it would tear the very 
masts out of her. If there had been a breath of wind 
only, our sails aloft would have steadied her, but a 
feather dropped from the hand would have fallen at 
your feet, so still it was. 

Going forward, I noticed that Bertric was leaning 
over the starboard rail, apparently contemplating the 
water. He was so thoroughly absorbed that when I 
spoke he failed to answer. I spoke again, and still no 
answer. Then I turned away, knowing that one fellow- 
being at least was in misery — a misery too deep for 
ordinary utterance. A while after I saw him sitting 
disconsolate on the bow, and said, 

B 2 



34 



Starboard and Port 




" My dear fellow, how do you like yachting?" 

"Like it?" he replied; "I hardly think I should 
venture to use that word. However, I am a wiser 
and sadder man just now than ever before. My first 
impressions of this thing are somewhat modified, and 
I think I should give rather a different definition to 
the word than that I have been accustomed to." 

"Ah ! well, how would you define it under the light 
of your present experiences ?" 

" I should say of yachting," he answered, in tones 
slow and measured, and not altogether cheerful, " that 
it consists in getting up at twelve, and keeping watch 
until six, in a dead calm, with a heavy groundswell, 
and a fearfully unhappy revolution going on inside, to 
which death seems like the sleep of a child." 



A Splendid Run. 35 

He then relapsed into his introspective mood once 
more, and I left him to his meditations. 

Thinking to cheer him up, it came into my heart to 
give him a serenade. So holding on to the shrouds to 
keep myself steady, I began, in a voice vigorous, if 
not musical, that song which is a precious piece of de- 
ception to landsmen : 

"A life on the ocean wave, 

A home on the rolling deep." 

Bertric caught the tones of my voice, when I first 
opened this sort of vocal cannonade, and when I sang 
the fifth word of the second line — I think I must have 
dwelt on it for a couple of beats longer than the time 
usually allotted to it — I heard coming through the dark- 
ness a sort of sigh, which deepened into a moan, evident- 
ly a feeble response from the fore-chains. When I had 
finished, I was surprised to see Bertric with a great ef- 
fort, and with a face too awry for happiness, standing 
on his feet as though he intended to return my favor. 
Pretty soon I heard in feeble tones, which sounded 
more like a hollow and mocking echo than any thing 
else, these words : 

"A life on the ocean wave, 

[Pause, as though undecided to continue.] 
The — man — that writ it was green; 
He never had been to sea, 
And never a gale had seen." 

[Suppressed " Oh, goodness !"] 

After which, in a voice too pathetic for description, 
came these lines : 

" He never had seen a poor fellow 

Growing thinner every day; [Pause.] 
A-sittin' down by the forrard chock, 

And throwin' himself away." [" Oh ! oh ! oh !"] 



36 



Starboard and Port 



I saw that the case was a 
hopeless one, that my friend was 
in a frame of mind to' which 
soHtude was the only balm, and 
so walked aft to talk with the 
captain. 

At about two o'clock a faint 
breeze sprang up from the east- 
ward. The sails gently filled, 
and there was the ripple of 
progress over the side of the 
boat. Soon the wind increased, 
and we made five knots an hour. 
By six o'clock it was blowing 
half a gale, dead ahead. 

How proudly the Nettie dash- 
ed aside the waves, sending the 
White-caps high in the air, and landing them all over 
the deck ! The water was of a deep, dark blue, and 
we sped along at a great rate. It was impossible, 
however, to lay our course for Seal Island, and so we 
concluded at ten o'clock to run for Portland, as we 
were in a pretty demoralized condition. The wind 
freshened still more, and the ocean seemed to be one 
mass of foam. The yacht heeled over to her work, 
and went like a magic creature. That was glorious 
sailing. We reached the city at about six P.M., and 
I have an impression that more gratitude was felt than 
expressed when we dropped anchor. 

" It would be very pleasant," said Ruloff the next 
day, " instead of laying our course directly across to 
Seal Island, to work our way along quietly inshore 




A Splendid Rtm, 37 

until we reach Mount Desert, and then turn our face 
southward." 

" Yes," I replied, " that would be better than the ex- 
perience of the last two days. So long as we can just 
as well keep in smooth water we might as well do it." 

And Bertric, "Although I enjoy being rocked in the 
cradle of the deep, and all that sort of thing, my im- 
pression is that a stationary bed once in a while is a 
healthy change." 

And Stigand, " I must say that for a day or two at 
least I should like to keep within a reasonable distance 
of the land. The motion of the water didn't seriously 
affect me the other day, but still I should like to study 
the coast for a while." 

And Algar, who is a perfect sailor, " I have just come 
across a man on shore who is a government pilot from 
Portland to Halifax, and who is ready to take our boat 
at an hour's notice." 

So it was agreed to run for Mount Desert. Algar went 
ashore and made an arrangement with Edwards, who is 
thoroughly posted as to every reef and rock, and in a 
couple of hours the anchor was weighed once more, and 
we were gliding along among the islands of Casco Bay. 
Every one was in a gay mood that morning. We sang 
songs, told stories, and played practical jokes, as though 
we were all boys again. The breeze was from the 
southwest, and promised to hold all day. It was very 
gentle, to be sure, but with our three jibs and our two 
gaff-topsails we managed to work along at about six 
knots. At one time we found ourselves within a hun- 
dred yards of an island in water as smooth as a mill- 
pond ; at another the Nettie rose and fell to the rhyth- 



38 * Starboard and Port, 

mic will of the waters as we passed an opening between 
two sheltered spots. For hours we sailed thus, on this 
most perfect of all summer days, until at last we made 
Seguin, about twenty miles from Portland. The wind 
then began to freshen, and after consultation it was 
deemed a pity to lose such an opportunity to get across 
that much-to-be-dreaded Bay of Fundy, so we gave up 
our inshore plan, and laid our course E.S.E. direct- 
ly for Seal Island. At one in the afternoon we were 
going at the rate of eight knots, and at two we crawled 
up to nine. 

Such a day is very seldom met with. It was a white 
day in the journal of our trip, and the sailing was the 
very perfection of motion. That was yachting indeed. 
The sea was of that supernaturally deep blue, the sight 
of which seems to entirely satisfy a man, and fill him 
full, and make him feel that language is so poor a ve- 
hicle of exact expression that it is better to say nothing 
than to talk. We nevertheless kept saying to each 
other in an explosive sort of fashion, '* Isn't it splendid !" 
" Isn't it magnificent !" and then, conscious that splendid 
and magnificent are very common words in which to 
describe such a sight, we fell to joining parts of words 
together, after the fashion of a friend of mine, and, mar- 
rying magnificent, after cutting away the last two syl- 
lables, to superb, after slicing off the first syllable, found 
some slight aesthetic satisfaction in calling the whole 
thing simply magniperb. 

Such sailing as that was worship. I think my better 
nature is never more completely stirred than when I 
am gazing upon the broad deep, the most wonderful 
part of God's creation. 



A Splendid Run, 39 

" God be with thee, gladsome Ocean ! 
How gladly greet I thee once more ! 
Ships, and waves, and ceaseless motion, 
And men rejoicing on thy shore. 

" O, ye hopes that stir within me, 

Health comes with you from above ! 
God is with me, God is in me ! 
I can not die, if Life be Love." 

So sang Coleridge very sweetly, and so every heart 
sings on such a glorious day as that. The grand ex- 
panse was but the floor of a great cathedral, whose 
groined roof was the over-arching heaven ; and none 
could stand within that sacred place and listen to the 
great organ of the waters praising God without a bound- 
ing pulse and an ecstatic joy. 

The sky was wondrously abysmal in its infinite depths 
of color, and the few clouds, huge cumuli of snowy 
white, shaded to a pearly gray in the middle, hung in 
stately grandeur here and there, as though ordinary 
clouds, like the rank and file of an army, had been left 
in their encampment below the horizon, while the brig- 
adier and major generals of vapor leisurely reconnoi- 
tred the field of future action. 

That livelong day we saw not a single vessel. We 
were out of the beaten track of commerce ; for the 
fishermen, the lumbermen, and the steamers bound to 
the east or west kept inshore. It was a very deli- 
cious sense of loneliness which filled our hearts with 
wondrous satisfaction as we sped along. The land had 
long since faded out of sight altogether, and the white- 
caps were our only companions. The Nettie heeled 
over to her work, and seemed to enjoy it as much as 
any one. Every stitch of canvas told, for the wind 



40 Starboard and Port. 

was on her quarter, and she hurried up to ten knots, as 
though she were anxious to show her very best speed, 
and brushed the water from her bow like a thing of 
Hfe. She would rise to the top of a wave, then, rush- 
ing down the other side, run her jib-boom into the next 
wave, and afterward lift herself and shake the water 
into spray. Hood has put this into better language 
than I can command : 

" With quaking sails the little boat 

Climbed up the foaming heap ; 
"With quaking sails it paused awhile, 

At balance on the steep ; 
Then, rushing down the nether slope, 

Plunged with a dizzy sweep." 

It was a kind of ecstatic pleasure to stand at her 
bows and watch her as she plunged into a huge hill of 
water, throwing it up on deck in a constant cascade. 
And the musical rush of the waves along her side as 
we lay on deck listening to it was a very delightful ex- 
perience. The sound ceased almost altogether when 
she lifted herself high in air, and then changed to a 
grand chorus as she flung herself back into its bosom 
almost up to her deck, with a grand swash which made 
a bed of snowy foam all around her. 

" What a difference there is, though, in the apparent 
speed of vessels," I said to the pilot. " How fast are 
we going, Edwards ?" 

" Well," he answered, looking over the side, " about 
six knot, I reckon." 

"No more?" I queried, disappointed. 

'■'• No, I guess not," was the answer. 

The captain chuckled, and said in an undertone, 
" Pshaw ! she's going ten, if she's going at all." 



A Splendid Run, 41 

*' Good," said Ruloff, " let's out with the log." 

So we threw the log over, and in a quarter of an 
hour hauled it in again to find that she was trotting 
along at the rate of ten and a half knots. 

" The pilot," said the captain, " has been accustomed 
to those blunt-headed coasters, which fight the water 
at every step, and make an awful bother when they 
travel ; but our boat is as sharp as a knife, and goes 
right along without making any fuss about it." 

About the middle of the afternoon the gentlemen 
were sitting by the cat-head, and I heard such a roar 
of laughter that I immediately went forward to have 
my part of the fun. They had been listening to a 
yarn which Fowler had reeled off, and the denouement 
was so incredible that they had greeted it with shouts 
of wild derision. 

Fowler was a character. He was about sixty years 
of age, and a first-rate sailor; but he could tell the 
most preposterous stories about himself, and had just 
been indulging in this propensity. 

" Well, you may laugh ; but what I tell ye is the 
truth. I was there, and ought to know all about it. 
I wouldn't tell you what wan't true, and I don't make 
nothin' by tellin' it bigger'n 'tis." 

" Come, come. Fowler ; take off about fifty per cent., 
and we'll beheve it," said Bertric. 

" No, sir !" with a fearful emphasis on the sir ; " I 
won't take off the worth of a spun yarn." And with 
that he began to chew vigorously on the mass of to- 
bacco which filled his mouth. 

"What is it, Fowler?" I said, as I joined the group. 

"Yes, tell it again, and see what the dominie will 



42 Starboard and Port, 

say. Tell it again ; it's like a good sermon, and will 
bear repetition." 

" Oh, no," said Fowler, with a modest laugh ; " I 
don't tell no stories twice." 

" Come, come, let's have it," I said, " and I will de- 
cide on its credibility." 

So, with a kind of chuckle, he threw away the tobac- 
co, fumbled in his pocket for a fresh supply, a suffi- 
cient quantity of which he cut off with a knife that 
had seen hard service, and said apologetically — 

'' Well, I was only tellin' what actually happened to 
me once ;" and with that preface he shut the knife, put 
the tobacco he had cut off into one side of his capa- 
cious mouth, and began : 

^* You see, it was twenty-two year ago, and yet I re- 
member it as if it was yesterday." 

^' Why, you said twenty years ago when you told it 
to us," chimed in Stigand. 

" No I didn't, neither ; and if I did, what's two 
years, I should like to know ? Wall, whenever it hap- 
pened, it was thus-wise, and what I'm goin' to tell ye 
is as true as this wind's sou'west. I was on board the 
schooner Sarah Martin, and it was the gth of March, 
and, more than that, it was at one o'clock in the morn- 
ing. I tell you it was awful cold, though. The wind 
whistled right through a feller's pea-jacket, and more'n 
once I had to look down to see if I had forgot to put 
any thing on when my watch was called — it was so 
mighty freezing. Not much like this weather, I tell 
ye ; but a regular old Marcher, with snow and ice in 
his teeth." 

" Where were you, Fowler, and what were you 
doing?" 



A Splendid Run, 43 

" Where were I ? why, we was off Nantucket, cod- 
ding — that's where we was ; and 'taint easy work pullin' 
in a fifteen-pound cod with a forty-fathom Hne, and 
findin' a dogfish on, either. Why, a feller's hands get 
so numb that he don't know he's got any, and thinks 
he's left *em to home." 

" Well, go ahead ; what were you doing at one 
o'clock in the morning?" 

"Doing? well, I'm just goin' to tell ye, only you 
won't let me tell a straight story. You get me all 
snarled up like a coil of wet rope, and it takes me a 
little while to get the kinks out, and tell it smooth." 

" Good ; take your own time, and if any man inter- 
rupts you again, we'll make him take an extra trick at 
the wheel." 

" Wall, that would be a good joke. By Jiminy ! 
ha, ha ! where do you s'pose we'd go to if you should 
do that ? I guess you'd have to put an extra watch on 
deck ; and as for Halifax, well, we might drift there, 
and then agin we might not. Trick at the wheel ! ha, 
ha! that would do well enough when we are at an- 
chor; but Lord, such a day as to-day, if the skipper 
should tell one of you gents to keep her full and by, 
or to just give her a good full, and keep her skippin' 
along, you'd head her for Boone Island, like's not." 

" Well, Fowler, uncoil your story, and I'll not inter- 
rupt you again." 

" As I was a-sayin', we was coddin' off Nantucket ; 
the wind blew heavy from the nor'east. There was a 
mighty sea runnin', and the cappen, seein' the rest o' 
the fleet had come to anchor, said to me, ' Fowler,' said 
he, 'hadn't we better let go our mud-hook?' I cast 



44 Starboard and Port 

my eyes to the norrard, and see it was goin' to blow 
pretty stiff all night, so I said, ' You can do as you like, 
Cap ; but if she was my craft, I know what I'd do, 
mighty quick.' 

" * What's that ?' sez he, kinder anxious ; for I no- 
ticed he always come to me when it was a-blowing 
hard. 

" '■ Why,' sez I, ' them clouds, they look ugly, and it's 
goin' to be a nasty night, and if we can get a fair hold 
of the bottom, it's all right.' 

'' So the anchor was let go, and we bobbed about a 
good deal worse than we did t'other night. That was 
a mill-pond side of the sea we were in. Talk of 
mountains — they war'n't nowhere side of them waves. 
Why, sir, once the schooner pinted her bowsprit right 
for the North Star, and you know she's got to stand 
up pretty well on end to do that. 

" I was just goin' out on the bowsprit to furl the jib, 
when a flaw of wind took the sail, and at the same 
minute a heavy wave struck us, and threw me off my 
feet. I hung on to the clew of the jib, expectin' to be 
landed against the larboard rail, you know. But the 
wind was so strong it blew the jib outboard, and, in- 
stead of droppin' on the deck, I fell flat on my back in 
the water. The tide was runnin' like a race-horse, and 
when I got about midships, as I reckoned, a roller 
lifted me about twenty feet above the deck, and I 
hollered." 

" You hollered ?" said Bertric. 

" Well, I guess I did, and the crew heard me, too, 
and the cappen, he heard me. I struck out, hopin" to 
get hold of the rail, but 'twar'n't no use. I give my- 



A Splendid Run, 45 

self up for lost. No more coddin' for me, I said to 
myself. Just then I heard the cappen say — 

"Tm throwin' ye a line, Fowler,* and with that I 
heard a splash close to me. It was so dark I couldn't 
see nothin', but I heard the rope strike the water. I 
had the presence of mind to think that the rope would 
sink, so I fumbled round about a foot under water and 
caught hold of somethin'. It was the whippin* of the 
line. 

" Well, I hung on with an awful grip, and could feel 
that they were haulin' away at t'other end. I never 
come so near faintin' in my life, but 'twar'n't no time 
to faint just then. The sailors was haulin' me on board, 
when one of them looked over the side and see that I 
had only the whippin' in my hand." 

*' I thought you said it was so dark you couldn't 
see," broke in Ruloff. 

'' Well, I was almost aboard then, and besides it lit 
up about two o'clock." 

"Two o'clock," cried Stigand, " why, you fell off the 
bows at one. Were you in the water in March for an 
hour, and did it take you sixty minutes, with a strong 
tide, to go from the stem to the stern ?" 

" Wall, it might not have been exactly two, but it 
was nigh on to it ; and besides that I was strugglin' all 
the time, and the time might have seemed a little 
longer than it really was ; and more than that, I had 
to guess at the time, cos I couldn't let go that rope to 
get my watch out and see just the minute I was 
drownded," said Fowler, not in the least discon- 
certed. 

" Well, when I was most up, one of the sailors, he 



46 Starboard and Port 

said, * Cappen, hadn't we better get the gaff, and make 
fast to him ?* At that I must say I felt mad. It was 
bad enough to fall overboard, but to be gaffed as 
though I was a dogfish was more than I could stand, 
so I really believe I fainted away. At any rate the 
next thing I knew I was in the cabin stretched out on 
one of the transoms. 

'' The cappen stood over me, shaking me and say- 
ing, ' Fowler, let go that rope.' I looked down to my 
hand, and found that I had hold of about three inches 
of it, with such a grip that I couldn't let go. So I 
took hold of the rope with my right hand, and kinder 
coaxed it away from the fingers of the other hand. 

" I tell you, that was a grip, though, wasn't it?" 

This remark was addressed to me, and I answered 
yes, without further comment on the adventure. 

Just then we saw the captain hauling in the log, and 
to our delight we found that in the last four hours we 
had made a trifle over fifty miles. The wind still held 
its own, and the prospect for a speedy trip to Halifax 
was good. 

That evening at sundown we feared the breeze would 
leave us, but, instead of beginning to die away at about 
four o'clock, and breathing its last at about seven, it 
held on until about nine, and died altogether at about 
twelve. For four hours we had a touch of the old ex- 
perience. The stars shone brightly, the sky was clear 
and almost cloudless, but the swell was something aw- 
ful for an inexperienced nervous system. Indeed, it is 
quite incredible that a vessel can roll as we did with 
not a breath of air stirring. The Nettie would be per- 
fectly still for a moment, as though we were under a 



A Splendid Run. 



47 



lee, and then she would slowly heel over to the star- 
board, and continue to roll until she actually put her 
rail under water, then straighten herself up, only to re- 
verse the motion, and put her larboard rail under. The 
accompanying diagram sufficiently accounts for any un- 
pleasantness which may have arisen among the com- 
pany on board. It is supposed to represent the lines 
which a topmast would make against the sky, pro- 
vided it were long enough to reach so far. I can scarce- 
ly look at it without discomfort. What sympathy, 




then, shall be given to one who experiences the sensa- 
tions which ii\ their fullness it so feebly suggests. The 
huge mainsail was so ungovernable that we concluded 
to take it in altogether. At two in the morning all 
hands were called, and in about half an hour the can- 
vas was snugly stowed, and the boom lashed as taut as 
possible. I tried to sleep, but it was impossible. If I 
lay on my back I found myself rolled like a barrel from 



48 Starboard and Port, 

side to side of the berth. If I doubled myself up, and 
braced my knees against the side, I maintained my 
position until sleep relaxed my muscles, when I was 
rudely wakened with a vague impression that I was a 
huge lump of dough, and that a giant cook was knead- 
ing me. So 1 dressed myself, and spent the time until 
four in the morning on deck, when a breeze from the 
south steadied her, and I went below again, and was 
lulled to sleep by the music of the water playing against 
the side as we went through it. At seven we were 
going on at a spanking rate, and the day promised 
to rival the yesterday which we had enjoyed so 
much. 

A good breakfast, and we were ready for any fate. 
Ah Boo, in whose presence we quote the favorite lines 
of Leigh Hunt, and say in chorus, '' Abou Ben Adhem, 
may his tribe increase," until he breaks out into a fit 
of childlike laughter which lights up his dusky face 
with sunshine, prepared for us a very elaborate meal. 
We began our work with a luscious blue-fish, after 
which followed in quick succession mutton-chops, a 
tender steak, a morsel of salt meat, and what the 
sailors call slap-jacks of the most approved kind. A 
full man is always a hero ; the seat and source of 
prowess as well as good temper is the stomach. This 
is especially true on board ship. 

At ten that morning we saw a fisherman on our lee 
bow, and determined to run him down, and find out 
exactly where we were. It is a pleasant experience 
to speak a vessel at sea. There is an excitement 
about it that breaks into the monotony of your life. 
We saw this schooner in the dimmest distance. She 



A Splendid Run. 49 

lay pretty nearly in our course. At first we could 
only discover the top of her main topmast. It was 
like a dull line against the sky. An unpracticed eye 
would never have detected it, but a sailor's eye is so 
trained to observation that nothing escapes it. In a 
little while we lifted the mast enough to see a few feet 
of the foremast, and after that we saw the rigging, 
and the masts coming apparently out of the water as 
though the hull were sunk, as indeed it was to our 
vision. By and by we saw the men on deck fishing. 
They had come from some point on the Nova Scotia 
coast, and could give us the information we wanted. 
We bowled along until we were within a hundred yards 
of her, when the captain cried, " Let her luff." 

The wheel was put hard up, and in a minute more 
the sails were flapping. 

"Ahoy there!'' yelled the captain to those on the 
fisherman. 

" Well, what is it ?" came back in answer. 

"Which way are we from Seal Island .>" said the 
captain, using his hands as a trumpet. 

" East-southeast." 

"How far?" 

" About thirty miles. Where diXQ you from ?" 

" From New York." 

" Where bound ?" 

" Gulf of St. Lawrence." 

The jib was hauled to windward, the Nettie payed 
off slowly, and in a few minutes we were striking out 
at a wonderful gait. We sighted the light-house on 
Seal Island in an hour and a half, and then lay our 
course up the coast. 

C 



50 Starboard and Port, 

We were very fortunate in that we had no fog. We 
kept in sight of the land the rest of the day and all 
the next night. It was exciting to watch one light 
as it gradually faded to the size of a taper, and then 
went out altogether, and then to watch the darkness 
ahead until the dim taper twelve or fifteen miles far- 
ther on grew larger and larger until we got abreast of 
it, and counted it as another milestone passed. So the 
lights — some steady, some flash, some white, others 
colored — marked our path over the waters and told 
us just where we were. 

I was up at twelve, for I was just a bit anxious, 
and at one o'clock thin gray streaks of light broke in 
the far east, and by two o'clock we could see quite 
well. 

All along the Nova Scotia coast wrecks are to be 
seen. Schooners, lumbermen, full - rigged ships, and 
even ocean steamers are strewn on those merciless 
rocks. The day before we counted something like a 
dozen in the hundred miles we traveled. 

There are very few buoys on this shore to mark the 
sunken reefs which threaten the life oj every passing 
vessel, and the light-houses will in nowise compare with 
ours. The flash is not as brilliant, nor can it be seen 
at any great distance. One would think that on such 
a ragged coast every possible means of safety would be 
employed ; but in these two important respects — lights 
and buoys, the almost sole dependence of the mariner 
in strange waters — the shore is strangely deficient. 

No landsman can appreciate the feelings with which 
the sailor greets a light-house. Each one has its own 
peculiarity ; and when a man peers into the black dark- 



A Splendid Run, 51 

nes3 and catches just the faintest possible glimpse of 
the light that burns in the headland tower, he feels like 
one who is getting into the midst of a group of friends. 
He watches it to learn whether it is a double or single 
flash, or whether it burns with a steady white blaze, 
and having determined that, he calls it by name, and 
knows where he is. 

It is a part of our Christianity to look well to the 
light-houses along our shores. 

" The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, 

And on its outer point, some miles away, 
The light-house lifts its massive masonry, 
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. 

"Not one alone; from each projecting cape 
And perilous reef along the ocean's verge, 
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape, 
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge." 

We sighted Sambro at about two o'clock in the 
morning. It is only six or seven miles from this light 
that the Atlantic went ashore. We had passed so 
many wrecks since we left Seal Island that we began 
to blame some one, we hardly knew whom, for not 
properly guarding a coast which seems to be the natu- 
ral hiding-place of hurricanes, and a kind of trap for 
unwary vessels. It was on Blond Rock, S. ^° east, 
that the Staffordshire struck. Nearly all on board 
were lost, the number including the captain, who went 
down with his vessel. This dangerous spot ought to 
be buoyed and beaconed. The steamship St. George 
struck there about four years ago, and the only vessel 
the Cunard line has lost was lost on Seal Island. Far- 
ther on to the N.E. is Cape Niger, where a goodly vessel 



5 2 Starboard and Port, 

was bleaching her bones. It is a dangerous spot, not 
so much because of the ragged rocks which reach far 
out from shore, as because of the sunken reefs which a 
stranger who seeks shelter from the storm knows noth- 
ing about until he is on them. And so from the 
southwestern extremity to Halifax the whole Nova 
Scotia coast is a series of traps, with no sign-boards 
marked " Beware." 

We kept at a respectful distance from Sambro, and 
entered the harbor of Halifax at four o'clock, making 
the run from Portland, including four hours of dead 
calm, in forty-four hours. This gave us an average of 
about eight and a half knots per hour, which we re- 
garded as very fine sailing. 



Bits of History, 53 




CHAPTER III. 

BITS OF HISTORY. 
" Any thing but history, for history must be false."— Walpoliana. 

'HE history of Nova Scotia is full of 
adventure and romance. While in 
Halifax I spent many a pleasant 
hour in recalling the appearance of 
the coast by which we had hurried so 
rapidly, and in posting myself up on 
the antecedents of a people who are, to say the least, 
pleasantly peculiar. It would be impossible to utter 
any thing but kindness of those who received us in the 
open arms of a generous and unstinted hospitality ; 
and when we left the place it was with pleasant 
memories and many regrets. As is not unusual with 
cities, the traveler who lands at the wharf in Hali- 
fax gets a very unfavorable first impression. He 
enters upon dirty streets, lined with gin-shops, and 
all sorts of nameless snares for the honor and money 
of visitors. But when he ascends the hill, the resi- 
dences are, many of them, palatial, and the view is 
superb. The bay lies at his feet, and stretches itself 
for miles toward the ocean. In the stream two men- 
of-war lie at anchor, while on the top of the hill are 
barracks for two regiments. These facts account suf- 



54 Starboard and Port, 

ficiently for the general feeling of demoralization with 
which one is oppressed. It is impossible to station 
any considerable detachment of an army near a city 
without producing injurious effects. Soldiers inevita- 
bly give a color to public opinion, and a general tone 
to society, which, with a subtlety all its own, detracts 
from the moral energy of the people. 

I said to a gentleman who had been exceedingly 
kind to us, and who was thoughtful concerning these 
things, " Do you not find that these red-coats lower 
the mercury considerably?" 

" Yes," he replied, without hesitation ; "• it is a great 
grief to many that the home government deems it 
necessary to keep such a force at this point." 

" In what way does it affect you ?" I queried. 

" Well," he answered, '^ a soldier's life is at best a life 
of adventure. These gentlemen, I mean the officers, 
though they will compare favorably with soldiers the 
world over, are without the restraining influence of 
home-life. When a crowd of men get together, or live 
together, I do not care how high-toned they may be to 
start with, they become more or less reckless. They 
are in an abnormal condition ; for men are not soldiers 
naturally — they are made soldiers by the stress of cir- 
cumstances." 

" And they are admitted into the best society ?" 

" Of course, many of them, if not all, have the right 
to demand it. Their social position, not reckoning 
their rank as our national defenders, makes us only too 
happy to open our doors and hearts to them." 

" Well, how then do they hurt society ?" 

" I can hardly answer definitely, except by saying 



Bits of History, 5 5 

that here, as in all garrison towns, what we call the 
scarlet fever prevails to a large extent. Ladies are 
always dazzled by military glory, and a red coat has 
pretty much the same effect on them that it produces 
on certain quadrupeds." 

" How is it with the rank and file ?" 

" Oh, they are a decided detriment. Two thousand 
men, with nothing particular to do, and no moral re- 
straints, will inevitably injure any community." 

" But does not the presence of these soldiers and 
sailors create a traffic which is of vital importance ?" 

" Not so much as you would suppose. I believe 
that, if the home government should see fit to remove 
these regiments and these men-of-war, our trade, which 
might suffer somewhat as an immediate consequence, 
would find new channels, and the commercial impor- 
tance of Halifax would be doubled in five years." 

These sentiments express, so far as I can judge, the 
feelings of many of the most thoughtful and patriotic 
people of the city. War at best is barbarism, and it 
is impossible to come in contact with it in any shape 
without injury. 

Halifax is curiously deficient in hotel accommoda- 
tions. We put up at the Halifax Hotel, which by no 
means answers to our definition of what a first-class 
hotel ought to be. The city needs also a commodi- 
ous public hall for various gatherings. We attended 
an entertainment given by a popular reader in the best 
hall in the city, where were congregated the elite of the 
place, and were surprised to find it dingy and poorly 
ventilated. The citizens of Halifax are very loyal to 
their hillside home, and ought to see to it that a first- 



56 Starboard and Port 

class hotel and a worthy public hall are erected at once. 
I do not say this with any desire to find fault, but sim- 
ply in the spirit of friendly criticism. I give the im- 
pression made upon me in a city where I received at 
the hands of many friends nothing but the most open- 
handed hospitality, and, though I criticise as others 
might in turn, though more sharply, criticise New 
York, I bore away with me only the pleasantest mem- 
ories, whose fragrance will abide. 

One of the pleasantest and most amusing experi- 
ences of our sojourn in Halifax was connected with 
Market-day. On Saturday morning of every week a 
motley group, consisting of two or three hundred vend- 
ers of all possible wares, take up their position around 
and in the vicinity of the Province Building. Here 
are to be found the most luscious wild strawberries, ly- 
ing in the lap of huge leaves ; fresh vegetables, arranged 
in the most tempting way ; early fruit, apples and mel- 
ons, and all other articles necessary to a well-regulated 
household. 

In one corner sit a coterie of Acadlans, who are said 
to be so honest that they sleep with unbolted doors, 
laboring under the impression that the rest of the 
world is as simple as themselves. They are modest 
folk, exceedingly timid, even to oppressive bashfulness ; 
coming to market among the earliest, and skittering 
back to their homes the moment their wagons are 
empty ; never lingering to gaze into shop-windows, and 
having little or no faith in the modern inventions 
which make the farmer's life easy. They are deplora- 
bly ignorant, hardly a dozen of them being able to 
read or write. They are wonderfully exclusive, and 



Bits of History, 57 

rarely marry out of their own class. It is curious that 
they are able to live within a few miles of such a place 
as Halifax without imbibing some of the notions with 
which the nineteenth - century brain teems. They 
avoid civilization, however, as though it were a pesti- 
lence, and come to town only to barter potatoes and 
turnips for flour and other absolute necessities. 

Here in another corner is gathered a group of In- 
dians. They are squalid to the last degree, and make 
a living by charging large prices for their wooden- 
ware. The old women sit glum and silent, vigorously 
weaving their twig baskets of many colors, while the 
more sprightly maidens, with swarthy faces and hair 
streaming down their backs, enter into a lively con- 
versation about the merits of their goods. They are 
altogether a clumsy, dull-blooded set, apparently in- 
capable of breathing the air of a city. 

Yonder are the Negroes, than whom I have never 
seen either men or women more unsightly. The In- 
dians exhibit the very perfection of neatness and thrift 
by the side of these helpless creatures. Darwin would 
delight in them as proofs positive of his pet theory. 
They are the missing link between the quadruped and 
the biped. Filthy beyond all expression, and incom- 
parably lazy, they seem to be scarcely human. They 
come from a settlement a few miles from the other 
side of the bay, where they starve and freeze in the 
winter, and bask in the sun all summer. They are 
refugees from the slavery of the South, and have cer- 
tainly not bettered their condition by taking up their 
abode on a foreign shore. 

I said to a friend, 

C2 



58 Starboard and Port 

" Is there no work for them to do in such a place as 

this r 

" Plenty," he replied, " but they won't do it." 

*' How do they get on, then ?" 

*' They don't get on at all. They just live, and no 
more. They did not rise when they escaped from the 
plantation, but fell to a worse estate, and there seems 
to be no help for them." 

" But where do they live, and how ?" 

" Well, you would scarcely call it living, if you saw 
them in their homes. They have a few huts, patched 
with mud, where they huddle, coming to town every 
Saturday to get a dime or two." 

I noticed that they had few vegetables to sell. The 
girls had pailfuls of lilies, which they disposed of for 
a penny apiece, while the old women concocted a kind 
of root beer, which found its way down the oesophagus 
of the unwary once only, for I think the same person 
never drank twice. 

I could not help thinking, however, that there is 
scarcely another place on the continent where two 
classes of people, like the Acadians and the Negroes, 
could live in proximity to, and in contact with, the 
busy life of a great city, without becoming amalga- 
mated, and so far affected by its spirit as to lose such 
prominent peculiarities. If they lived within ten miles 
of New York or Boston, they would be trading jack- 
knives, swapping horses, and selling the real estate on 
which they had encamped, in less time than it takes to 
put a girdle around the earth, which, according to the 
most liberal estimate, is just forty minutes. The sweet 
Acadian damsels would preside over the households of 



Bits of History. 59 

thriving young men who had invaded their caste, and 
obhterated all lines of circumvallation, while the Ne- 
groes, taking shelter under the provisions of the Fif- 
teenth Amendment, would send their children to school 
and run for Congress. 

Nova Scotia presents a very varied and interesting 
history. It was probably discovered by those restless 
Cabots, a family consisting of a father and three sons, 
concerning whom the accepted records abound with 
the most delightful uncertainty. It is well proven, 
however, that they were daring sailors, setting the 
dangers of the sea at naught, and adding not a little 
to those romantic adventures which are the jewels of 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

Neither the birthplace nor the grave of the father 
is known. He is called a citizen of Venice, which 
right he won by a residence of something like fifteen 
years. He afterward took up his abode in Bristol, 
England, where he lived for years an uneasy sort of 
life, with his wife and three promising and stalwart 
boys. It was just about this time that public opinion 
began to change concerning the shape of the earth. 
People had been accustomed to think that they were 
living on a vast grassy plain, and firmly believed that 
if any one adventured to the edge, he would inevitably 
drop off and fall — somewhere or nowhere, geographers 
finding it difficult to determine which. 

This new theory of sphericity assumed a practical 
shape at once. The European trade with the East 
Indies was of vast importance, and it was gravely con- 
cluded by the practical men of the day that, since it 
was such a fearful distance, sailing eastward, to the In- 



6o Starboard and Port 

dies, it must necessarily be a shorter distance sailing 
westward. That little notion changed the destiny 
of the race, and gave to six generations their char- 
acter. It was, therefore, for purposes of trade that 
the first impulse was given by the well-to-do and 
ambitious merchants to these discoverers, who, within 
a century of the date above mentioned, made the 
world ring in praise of their prowess and their con- 
quests. 

Cabot had theorized himself into a state of great ex- 
citement, and fully made up his mind that a northwest 
course would certainly bring him to Japan and China. 
What is now known as the Sea of Sargossa, a vast 
tract of floating sea-weed, a sort of continental eddy, 
made it impossible to take a straight cut across the 
ocean. Once in these doldrums, one might lazily float 
for weeks and make no progress. Columbus sailed 
south of this region of calm, which is nearly as vast in 
extent as the Mediterranean, and Cabot determined to 
trust to luck on a northerly tack. The consequence 
was that Columbus effected a landing down by the 
Bahamas, while his rival came to anchor among the 
landslides of Labrador. 

The successors of Columbus spent their efforts on 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, while those of Cabot 
laid claim to Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 
and the territory lying as far south and west as Nan- 
tucket. 

On the fifth of March, 1496, John Cabot succeeded 
in getting a patent from the Seventh Henry, authoriz- 
ing him to go where he pleased, steal whatever he 
might lay his hands on, and keep what he could. John 



Bits of History. 6i 

started with a single vessel, accompanied by his son 
Sebastian, in May, 1497, to tempt his fate. The sue-, 
cess of his expedition is told in the following quaint 
letter from PasquiHzo to his brothers in Venice, and is 
dated August 23d, 1497 : 

" The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a 
ship from Bristol in quest of new islands, is returned, 
and says that seven hundred leagues hence he discov- 
ered land, the territory of the Grand Cham. He coast- 
ed three hundred leagues, and landed ; saw no human 
beings. He was three months on the voyage, and on 
his return saw two islands on his right hand, but would 
not land, time being precious, and he was short of pro- 
visions. His name is Juan Cabot, and he is styled the 
Great Admiral." 

A year after this, in July, 1498, Don Pedro de Azala, 
the Spanish embassador at the court of Henry VH., 
undoubtedly stirred to envy by the praise of Cabot's 
exploits, which rang through London, wrote to Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella a letter which in those hot-blooded 
times might easily have been made a casus belli. 

He said to their august majesties : 

" I have seen the map which the discoverer has 
made, who is another Genoese, like Columbus, and who 
has been in Seville and in Lisbon asking assistance for 
his discoveries. ... I have seen on a chart the direc- 
tion which he took, and the distance he sailed, and I 
think that what he has found, or what he is in search 
of, is what your majesties already possess." 

Well spoken for an embassador who did not pro- 
pose to have the glory of his native land dimmed by 
the exploits of a rival explorer. 



62 Starboard and Port, 

The name of the little craft in which the Cabots 
sailed was the Matthew. Where he sailed it is not 
easy to determine ; but he must have gone far north, 
for, when on the starboard tack on his return trip, he 
saw Newfoundland on his right hand. 

I do not much believe that the old gentleman ever 
landed on what is called Nova Scotia. His son Sebas- 
tian, however, in May, 1498, started with two ships 
from Bristol, and became so involved among icebergs 
that he steered for the south, and made a harbor on 
the mainland. This was undoubtedly the picturesque 
peninsula of which we are speaking. 

Nova Scotia was first colonized by Des Monts and 
some Frenchmen, with a slight leaven of Jesuits, in 
1604. They called that whole section of country 
Acadia. After this date the colonists became in- 
volved in endless quarrels among themselves and with 
the English, who, under a patent granted by James I., 
claimed the territory, and called it Nova Scotia, or 
New Scotland, which quarrels had no cessation until 
the Treaty of Paris, February, 1763, when France, tired 
out by the continual muss, surrendered all claim to 
the place. 

Americans ought to be interested in this whole sec- 
tion of country, because it was once a part of our own 
domain, and because, if coming events cast their shad- 
ows before, it is very likely to become so again. 
When the old charter of Massachusetts was forfeited, 
and, under William and Mary, a new one was obtained, 
the colony of New Plymouth, the province of Maine, 
and Nova Scotia were all annexed to it. The only 
reservation made by the British government, I believe, 



Bits of History, d^^ 

was the right to cut timber any where in the forests 
suitable for masts for the Royal Navy. 

The topography of Nova Scotia is exceedingly 
monotonous. The highest spot is Arthur's Seat, which 
rises only 8io feet above the sea, while the average 
height of the hills is not far from 500 feet. The soil 
on the southern coast is very thin indeed, and what on 
better land would be called agriculture, there reaches 
only the questionable dignity of scratchiculture. The 
inhabitants obtain a precarious living, and, though the 
hamlets and villages consisting of a few hundred in- 
habitants are numerous, there is scarcely a large-sized 
town, with the exception of Halifax, from Seal Island 
Light to White Head. One is saddened at sailing day 
after day for hundreds of miles along a coast which af- 
fords so few means of living. The people are almost 
universally fishermen, going out in their little boats a 
distance of nine or ten miles after cod, or setting their 
seines for herring in the harbors, or visiting their lob- 
ster-pots twice a day. These are their only sources of 
revenue. They live in the poorest and scantiest w^ay, 
seldom acquiring the traditional penny which is taken 
from the stocking on a rainy day. 

We were hardly surprised, when landing for the pur- 
pose of discovering how they lived, to find them ex- 
ceedingly ignorant. Few newspapers ever reach those 
secluded spots, and few churches are to be seen. They 
live from hand to mouth, and seem to be content, not 
vv^ith little, but with what they can get. 

We were struck, however, by the depth of water in 
the numerous harbors. Few places on the earth afford 
such shelter for vessels. Every few miles a splendid 



64 Starboard and Port 

lee invites the traveler who sees a storm coming. 
And yet these are rendered dangerous of approach by 
the lack of buoys to indicate the presence of sub- 
merged rocks and reefs. The home government could 
expend a few thousand pounds in no better way than 
by erecting beacons and anchoring buoys along this 
dangerous and treacherous coast, where unknown and 
changing currents suck the unwary vessel to sure de- 
struction. 

I wonder that our own government has not made a 
move in this direction. Our fishing fleet is so large 
that the money which is lost in a single year by that 
daring and too little appreciated part of our popula- 
tion which furnishes the world's Sunday breakfast- 
table with its delicious compound of cod and potato 
would suffice to put a warning hand on every rock 
and on the edge of every channel along the entire 
coast. The waters within a few miles of shore are a 
regular highway along which thousands of vessels trav- 
el every winter. Between Halifax and the Gut of Canso 
there are twenty-four commodious harbors, safe shelter- 
ing-places from the "harricanes" which sometimes strike 
a fleet with appalling suddenness ; and at least ten out 
of the twenty-four have a sufficient depth of water to 
float ships of the line. Hardly one of them is proper- 
ly buoyed, and the captain who is driven by stress of 
weather or the loss of spars and sails in a gale to find 
a lee, must do it at the risk of losing his craft. 

This country could do nothing at the present time 
more profitable or creditable to itself, and nothing that 
would give it more popularity among those who are 
compelled to sail these waters in December as well as 



Bits of History, 65 

July, than the creation of a commission that would ar- 
rive at some understanding with the British govern- 
ment, and ultimate in planting, at the mouth of every 
harbor, a beacon on every rock that dares show its 
treacherous head above water, and anchoring buoys 
off every sunken reef along the whole coast of Nova 
Scotia. I have visited the fishermen who go from 
Gloucester and other points to the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence, and have found only dread of this shore. They 
universally heave a sigh of relief when they get by 
White Head. They are certainly a hardy and de- 
serving race, encountering untold dangers every year, 
and have the right to claim at our hands all possible 
exemption from peril. 

There is hardly a branch of industry in the world 
that is attended with such risk as our fisheries. When 
you watch the white sails of a fleet lying in the har- 
bor, you get the impression that life on board such 
weatherly craft must be very pleasant, and you almost 
envy the favored fellows who have a good berth. But 
when they lie-to under try-sails on the Banks, or in a 
heavy gale part their hawsers, and tumble down on 
each other, the feeling of envy changes to pity. It is 
one thing to skim the summer sea, and quite another 
to brave the snowy blast with the mercury cuddling 
about zero to keep warm. 

During the last forty-three years Gloucester alone 
has lost fourteen hundred and thirty-seven men, and 
two hundred and ninety-six vessels. This makes the 
fearful average of thirty-four lives and seven vessels 
yearly. It is impossible to run over this long cata- 
logue of disasters, remembering that every winter adds 



66 Starboard and Port, 

to it, without a feeling of admiration for the rough but 
hardy and heroic fellows who brave death every time 
they weigh anchor. If it is possible to encourage 
them amid their perils, it should be done ; and if by the 
expenditure of a comparatively paltry sum we can as- 
sist them to successfully defy the storm, we ought not 
to be laggard in coming to their aid. 

I have lately come across a narrative in a little book 
called " The Fisherman's Memorial and Record Book," 
published in Gloucester, which puts the constant perils 
of our brave sailors in such vivid light that I repro- 
duce it without apology. It is the recital of a very 
common experience, only in too many instances the 
issue is fatal. No one can read it without a feeling 
of sympathy for those who bid their wives and chil- 
dren farewell with a strange feeling that the chances 
are against their ever seeing them again. 

"The winter of 1862 found me out of employment, and I determined to 
gratify my long pent-up inclination of going to Georges. It was early in 
February. The weather had been extremely mild for the season, and 
there were busy times at the wharves in Gloucester. 

" Upon going to the fitting-out store of Messrs. , I was cordially 

received. They were surprised to learn that I wanted to go to Georges, 
and endeavored to dissuade me from my purpose. Their persuasions 
were of no avail, however ; and, as they had a vessel which would be ready 
to sail in a day or two, they told me I could have a chance in her. Pro- 
curing the necessary additions to my outfit, I entered heartily into the 
work of getting our craft in readiness. The ice-house in the hold was 
filled with the crystal blocks, the cable and anchors overhauled, gurry- 
pens placed in position, bait of fresh herring packed in the ice, provisions 
taken care of, and the vessel put in a taut and strong condition. 

♦* On the morning of February 14th we started, and, in a glorious run 
of twenty-four hours, sighted the fleet on the Banks — nearly a hundred 
sail, riding at their anchors, half a mile, and, in some instances, a mile 
apart. It was a pretty sight, and the fine, clear weather rendered it high- 



Bits of History. 67 

ly enjoyable. We could distinctly see the men at the rail pulling in fish, 
rapidly as hands and arms could move. Soon our position was selected, 
the anchor was down, and the crew were busy getting ready to try their 
luck. 

" The cold, to one of my constitution, was intense, and pierced into the 
very marrow of my bones, although I was thickly clothed. But this deep- 
sea fishing was so exciting that I stood at the rail sometimes a full hour, 
without changing my position, pulling in the big cod-fish, and occasionally 
a halibut. It was a moment of supreme gratification when I hauled in 
my first fish of the latter species, and saw him floating alongside with the 
hook securely fastened in his mouth. One of the crew helped me to gaff 
him over the rail, and I felt myself master of the situation. Our steward, 
a Portuguese, was a clever fellow, and, in honor of my first halibut, brought 
me a mugful of hot coffee, and a pancake with plums in it, called by the 
fishermen a * joe-flogger.' Pulling in these big fish from so many fathoms 
down, against a strong tide, was work I was not accustomed to, and glad 
enough was I, after partaking of a hearty supper, to turn into my bunk, 
and be lulled to sleep by the tossing of the billows. 

" The crew were a jolly set, and for several days the weather was fine, 
the fish abundant, and the fun immense. We had changed our berth 
twice, each time drawing nearer to the body of the fleet, and each time 
finding the fish more plentiful. I began to think that the Georges fishery, 
after all, was not so bad as it had been represented, although it used to 
fret me exceedingly to see so many of the vessels lying so near together, 
knowing full well that in case of a sudden storm and they dragged their 
anchors, or chafed off their cables and went adrift, collision would be in- 
evitable. But there being no apparent danger, I dismissed the thought 
in keeping busy. 

" We now had more than half a fare, and the skipper remarked, one 
afternoon, as he lit his pipe, 

" * Boys, if our luck holds on, by another week we'll think of putting 
our craft on the homeward tack.' 

" This was cheering, and we finished up the day with a good catch. At 
sundown there was quite a sudden change in the weather. The clouds 
massed, and the rising wind made the sea rough. All signs indicated an 
approaching storm. It was a wild-looking night ; the vessels tossed up 
and down like cockle-shells. At eight o'clock the skipper began to get 
uneasy. He kept looking up at the sky, and then glancing along the ho- 
rizon. Ben, my chum, whispered to me, 

" * Depend on it, we're going to have a tough one out of this ; and I 



68 Starboard and Port 

shouldn't wonder if you had a chance to see more o' Georges than you'll 
ever want to see ag'in. I've been with the old. man half a dozen years, 
and when I see him walkin' and lookin' that way, I make up my mind 
that som'thin's goin' to happen.' 

" By this time the sky had grown inky black, the wind had veered to 
the northeast, and was increasing in violence. It began to snow — moder- 
ately at first, then more fiercely fell the white flakes. The skipper went 
forward and examined the cable, then gave orders to pay out some ten 
fathoms or more, which was done. Our lights in the rigging had been lit 
since sundown, and all about us were the lights of the fleet, looking so 
prettily as they danced up and down with the motion of the vessels. The 
skipper, upon being asked what he thought, replied : 

" ' We'll have a tough time 'tween now and morning, and the watch 
must keep a sharp lookout for drifting vessels. If the rest of you want 
to take a nap, do it now, as there won't be much sleeping a couple of 
hours from now.' 

"All hands except the watch went below at about half-past eight 
o'clock. I could not remain there, but kept going on deck. It was some- 
thing new and terrible to me, and, as I was well wrapped, I did not suffer 
much from the wet and cold. But I did feel anxious, and would have 
given all I possessed to be safely at home. But wishing was of no avail 
— here I was, and I must take my chance with the rest. We can die but 
once, thought I, and I began to have serious thoughts. Not that I was 
afraid of death — no, that was not the feeling ; but there was one at home 
whom I wanted to see, and, holding her hand in mine, I should have been 
better reconciled. But perhaps it is as well not to tell all my thoughts at 
that fe;irful time. We have singular fancies in hours of danger. 

" It was now about eleven o'clock. The wind had risen fearfully, the 
snow came down spitefully, and the sea rose higher than I had ever sup- 
posed it possible for it to rise, and was covered with snowy caps of foam. 
The sensation of being tossed up and down so violently, together with the 
darkness and the storm, were not pleasing, and it seemed to me that ev- 
ery plunge the vessel made would be her last. 

" As midnight drew near the gale increased fearfully. I had never ex- 
perienced any thing so terrific before, and the stories which had been told 
on board the mackerel-catcher now assumed a more truthful aspect. How 
the winds shrieked through the cordage, and the waves leaped, seemingly 
impatient to add us to the many victims which have been swallowed up 
on this treacherous spot ! My shipmates showed no signs of fear ; they 
were all on deck, and the skipper was keeping a sharp lookout. Ben was 



Bits of History, 69 

also on the alert, and had placed a hatchet near the windlass, to be in 
readiness should it be deemed necessary to cut our cable. As he came 
near where I was standing, he very coolly remarked * that if we did not 
break adrift ourselves, or some other vessel didn't run into us, he thought 
we might ride it out.' To me it seemed an utter impossibility for any 
vessel to stand such a gale ; but I said nothing. The great danger to be 
apprehended was from collision, as in case either ourselves or some other 
of the fleet lost their anchor or parted their cable, away they would go 
with fearful speed ; then, if they struck another craft, good-bye to both of 
them — there was not the slightest hope for either. 

"The darkness was impenetrable, and a more dismal night I never 
passed. How I longed for morning to dawn ! Once in a while the storm 
would lull for a little time, then we could see some of the lights of the 
fleet ; but this was not often. We knew the situation ere the storm came 
on, but now we must wait till daylight. The hours dragged heavily along 
— anxious hours they were. They are indelibly impressed on my mem- 
ory, and will not be eflaced until death claims me. During the night a 
large vessel passed quite near us. We could see her lights, also her spars 
and sails, as she sped swiftly along on the wings of the storm. Glad 
enough were we to have her pass us, and I trembled at the thought of our 
fate had she struck our little craft. When I learned the terrible disaster 
of the gale, I came to the conclusion that this vessel was the cause of some 
portion of it. 

"At length the east began to lighten; morning was coming. What a 
relief it was when the day dawned ! Our danger was not over, for the 
gale still continued, but there was a comfort which the light brought that 
did me good. The fearful darkness of the night and that terrible uncer- 
tainty were relieved, as we could now see our position and better guard 
against the threatening dangers. Our vigilance was not relaxed. We 
had something to eat, and then kept up our watching, for the storm still 
continued its fury. Somewhere about nine o'clock the skipper sang out, 
* There's a vessel adrift right ahead of us ! stand by with your hatchet, 
but don't cut till you hear the word !' 

" Ben was there at his post. He could be trusted at such a time, and 
would await orders — this all on board knew full well. All eyes were now 
bent on the drifting craft. On she came ! It was a fearful moment to 
me, and it was evident that the men — some of whom had followed Georges 
fishing for ten seasons — thought there was danger now, but they were not 
afraid. There they stood, determined to do their best for their lives. 
I knew I should share the same fate with them, and there was some con- 



70 



Starboard a7td Port. 



solation even in this. The drifting vessel was coming directly for us ; a 
moment more, and the signal to cut must be given ! With the swiftness 
of a gull she passed by, so near that I could have leaped aboard, just 
clearing us, and we were saved from that danger, thank God ! The hope- 
less, terror-stricken faces of the crew we saw but a moment, as they went 
on to certain death. We watched the doomed craft as she sped on her 
course. She struck one of the fleet a short distance astern, and we saw 
the waters close over both vessels almost instantly, for as we gazed they 
both disappeared. Then we knew that two vessels of the fleet would nev- 
er again return to port. 

" We had little time to think of others, as we began to drag our anchor, 
and yaw about too much for safety. This was dangerous in the extreme, 
for if the anchors did not take hold again we must cut our cables, and, 
once adrift, we knew our fate. Fortunately, the anchors found holding- 
ground, and we rode again in safety. 

" All through the day we watched. Twice was our safety endangered 
by vessels adrift, but they went clear. We were saved ! At sundown 
the gale moderated, but we knew that many a poor fellow who had left 
Gloucester full of hope would never more return ; that many a wife would 
never again see her husband, and mothers and brothers and sisters would 
have cause to remember the terrible gale which had swept so fearfully 
over the Georges. 

" I was on nettles all next day, as I thought the skipper would immedi- 
ately start for home. But judge of my surprise to see the men coolly get 
their lines in readiness for fishing, just as though there had been no storm, 
no danger or peril but a few hours ago. This was indeed intensely prac- 
tical. They smoked and talked of getting a fare with so much coolness 
that it really seemed terrible to me. * Supposing we should catch another 
gale — what then ?' I received for a reply that * they had come to get a 
trip of fish ; I, to see how I liked Georges.' We fished through the week, 
had good luck, and it was a happy moment when the skipper said, * Get 
the anchor j we'll turn her nose homeward.' Eastern Point Light, when 
first sighted, looked cheering and friendly. As we passed in by the Fort, 
there was a crowd of people, and as they saw our vessel's name there was 
rejoicing. Several came on board, asking if we had seen such or such a 
vessel since the gale. The town was in commotion. Such anxiety I hope 
never again to witness. 

" When the vessel came alongside the wharf, I put my luggage out, and 
concluded not to repeat the experiment of making a trip to Georges in 
midwinter. When I got home, they told me I had grown much older in 



Bits of History. 71 

the few weeks of my absence. What I experienced during that night and 
day of storm was enough to make any one, especially a green hand, grow 
old. I have no desire to try it again. If the reader wishes a similar ex- 
perience, perhaps it would be well for him to take a trip, but I advise all 
such to make their wills ere they leave port." 

Barry Cornwall has beautifully framed the facts in 
these striking lines: 

" A perilous life, and sad as life may be, 
Hath the lone fisher on the lonely sea. 
O'er the wide waters lab'ring, far from home. 
For some bleak pittance e'er compelled to roam; 
Few hearts to cheer him through his dangerous life, 
And none to aid him in the stormy strife j 
Companion of the sea and silent air, 
The lonely fisher thus must ever fare ; 
Without the comfort, hope— with scarce a friend, 
He looks through life, and only sees — its end." 



72 



Starboard and Port 



CHAPTER IV. 

AMONG THE ROCKS IN A FOG. 

"The mist that like a dim soft pall was lying, 
Mingling the gray sea with the low gray sky." 

HiGGINSON. 
" Thus, while to right and left destruction lies, 
Between the extremes the daring vessel flies, 
But haply she escapes the dreadful strand, 
Though scarce her length in distance from the land." 

Falconer. 

E started from Halifax on Satur- 
day morning at about half- past 
eleven. There was just a breath 
of air, enough to tempt us out 
into deep water; but when we 
were to the eastward of Sambro 
it left us to drift with the tide. By this time, however, 
we had learned to take matters very philosophically, 
and not chafe at any fate which might beset us. A 
man who has not become used to the freaks of the 
ocean, and who can not take its whims and caprices 
as so rriany jokes to be laughed at, feels like a chained 
lion when he is on the water in a dead calm. It is a 
great shock to the nervous system to know that you 
are within a few miles of land, and yet too far off to 
think of rowing the distance, and to gaze on the spires 




Among the Rocks in a Fog, 73 

and cupolas of the neighboring city which invites you 
to pleasures you can not enjoy. 

If it has ever been your misfortune to lie down in a 
very narrow berth in a steamboat, amid pitchy and tan- 
gible darkness, and to allow your imagination to work 
until you felt as though you were in a coffin, the lid of 
which was being screwed down by invisible hands, and 
the air of which was being gradually exhausted, you 
can get some faint idea of the misery of being becalm- 
ed off soundings, but within sight of land, when one is 
in a hurry to reach his destination. The days were 
wearing away, and we had already left a couple of 
weeks of vacation behind us ; and it did seem hard to 
be drifting a few miles up the bay with the flood, and 
then a few miles out to sea with the ebb tide, when we 
wanted so much to be chasing the deer in Newfound- 
land or catching salmon on the coast of Labrador. 
Still, it is necessary for a yachtsman to possess his soul 
in patience, and to take gratefully whatever the winds 
and waters choose to give him. He must be ready 
and willing to go when and where he can, not when 
and where he would like to. 

Ah Boo is a fisherman. How he spent his dusky 
youth I know not, but shrewdly suspect that he coaxed 
the finny tribe of his native waters with the universal 
pin-hook. He poked his head up above the gangway, 
and with an explosive " Oh ! no wind ! me fish and 
have chowder for dinner," made a raid on the cockpit 
for a line, which he captured and carried triumphantly 
to the fore-rigging. He handled the fresh clams, which 
had been purchased for just such an emergency, with a 
tender care, as though each one contained a pearl, and 

D 



74 Starboard and Port 

at last selected two or three overgrown and plethoric 
bivalves as a tempting bait. 

" Ah Boo, you propose to feed the fish well," I said, 
as the three luscious morsels dangled from his hook in 
delightful confusion. 

'' Yes, yes," he replied, " me feed 'em well, then they 
feed us well ;" and with that he threw the three-pound 
sinker with a deft cunning which proved that he was 
no apprentice. 

The line ran out ten, twenty fathoms, when I said, 
" Why, steward, there's no bottom." 

" Oh yes, me find bottom soon," replied the cheery 
fellow as he patiently uncoiled more line, and was re- 
warded by feeling the lead touch the sand below. He 
took his seat on the rail, and with his right hand drew 
the line up a foot or two, then let it fall back again, 
after the most approved fashion. 

" Now come on, fish, and bite my hook. I want 
you ; I want chowder ; come on," he said, as though 
holding converse with the inhabitants below. Just 
then came a twitch. He was on his feet in an instant, 
and hauling in the line hand over hand. When he 
had recovered about half of it, he stopped to catch 
breath and assure himself that the fish was on, when, 
with a very expressive " Oh, he gone ; he no bite 
good," he dropped the line down again, and waited 
patiently for number two. 

In a few minutes I heard him again conversing with 
an invisible somebody, and tugging away at his line, as 
though there were a whale at the end of it. 

" Me got him this time ; big fellow, too." And then 
addressing his remarks to the fish, " Only little way 



Among the Rocks in a Fog, 75 

more, Mr. Cod ; keep hold good, and I have you safe 
on deck." 

With that he pulled very steadily, and soon landed 
a fine haddock, weighing about ten pounds. 

" I got you now, ole feller," he said, as he took him 
by the gills and hauled the hook out. " Look, Mr. 
Hepper ; big fish, big chowder," and he chuckled. 

He hurried below for his knife, and began his work 
by remarking, " No let fish die — kill him ; more quicker 
kill him, more better eat," and with that he gave the 
fish a blow on the head which would have stunned a 
bullock. 

" Now, then," said the captain, coming upon the 
scene of action, " I'll make a chowder myself. You 
can beat me all holler in preaching, Mr. Hepworth, 
but I don't give in to any one in making chowder. 
Steward, give me that knife." 

Ah Boo is accustomed to obey, and so reluctantly 
gave the knife to the captain, and sought his retreat 
below, saying to himself, " Me make good chowder too. 
Me no sail vessel, but me make chowder more better'n 
cappen." 

The captain handled that haddock in the most mas- 
terly and yet in the tenderest way. With a cut just 
forward of the pectoral fins, he got at the root of the 
gills, which he removed as skillfully as a first-class sur- 
geon would perform a brilliant operation. He then 
turned the fish over on his side, and made a slit down 
the back on either side of the dorsal fins, which seemed 
to come out of their own accord. He performed the 
same operation on the anal fins, and then, cutting the 
haddock open, removed the entire spinal column. He 



76 Starboard and Port. 

handled the head also in a way not easily described, 
but which resulted in the removal of about half, while 
the other half was strung on the body like a huge 
bead, and the work was done. 

" There," said he ; "I want some pork, some hard 
bread, and some toast, and I'll show you a dish fit for 
a king." 

Let me skip over the rest of the morning, for I am 
so interested in the chowder that I would fain linger 
in the vicinity of the cook-room until the grand finale. 
The fragrance of that most mysterious and most deli- 
cious combination hovers about my memory still, and 
no one was backward when, at one o'clock, Ah Boo 
called out, 

*' Dinner ready, sir." 

" Now, then, captain, you are on trial," cried Bertric, 
as he received what would have sufficed for most men, 
but what proved to be only the introduction to a 
hearty dinner. 

"All right," he replied, with a chuckle, as though he 
were sure of the victory. 

We tasted, and with loud acclamations cheered the 
captain. The innumerable ingredients had been mixed 
with such cunning that nothing was wanting, except 
perhaps more chowder. 

The calm hung on with a grip like that with which 
Fowler held to the rope, all that afternoon and during 
the entire night. We spent the time until ten o'clock 
in the discussion of subjects grave and gay, in looking 
over the slender stock of literature which our yacht 
library contained, and in games of draughts, and then 
went to bed. 



Among the Rocks in a Fog, 77 

I may say just here that our enthusiasm concerning 
taking our trick at the wheel and our watch at night 
gradually faded until it was lost to sight, though it re- 
mained to memory dear. We felt, you know, that it 
might destroy the discipline necessary on a cruise of 
that kind to interfere with any of the duties of the 
crew. Besides, we noticed that the captain made up 
his slate without any reference whatever to us, setting 
his regular watches from the forecastle, and then came 
to ask how we proposed to pass the night. We felt 
the slight, because of the implied want of confidence in 
our ability, which was perhaps justified by the fact that 
every one of us had been found more than once fast 
asleep at his post. One evening the captain came on 
his customary errand, and said, 

" Mr. Hepworth, where will you watch to-night ?" 

I replied, " Well, Cap, if it makes no difference to you, 
I will take my watch in my state-room, from ten o'clock 
until about six in the morning." 

The captain saw that the knotty problem was solved 
at last, and chuckled as though he had anticipated just 
that result. However, he put a grave face on the mat- 
ter, and turning to Ruloff, said, 

" Mr. Ruloff, which is your watch ?" 

Ruloff replied, with great dignity, as though the fate 
of the voyage was to be decided by his action, 

"Cap, after due deliberation, I have concluded to 
take a sort of dog-watch from four to six in the aft- 
ernoon." 

"And you, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to 
Bertric and Stigand. 

" Well," said Bertric, looking at a huge English ter- 



78 Starboard and PorL 

rier we had with us, " if Ruloff takes the dog-watch, 
Stigand and I will watch the dog." 

But Algar still clung to his duty. He really liked 
to sit up at night and look out for light-houses, and be 
ready in case of a tack or a change of wind, or any 
other emergency. 

And so ended, most ignominiously, our experiment 
of the Corinthian method of yachting. It is very de- 
lightful in theory to take control of your own vessel, 
and to become part and parcel of the work done ; but 
in practice it is not pleasant to be shaken out of a 
warm sleep on a rainy midnight, with a gruff " Come, 
come, our watch is up." 

You ask the intruder, '' How is the weather, John ?" 

*' Raining hard, sir." 

"■ And the wind ?" 

" Nor'-east, and blowing a gale." 

You reluctantly rub your eyes, then crawl into your 
clothes, pull on your rubber boots, get into your rubber 
coat and hat, and grope your way on deck, to find it dark 
as the inside of a tar-barrel, while the vessel is pitching 
and rolling at a fearful rate. The Corinthian method 
is very good in a harbor, and it is not exactly irksome 
if it consists in giving orders to your sailing-master to 
go from one port to another, and to govern himself ac- 
cordingly, after which piece of advice you retire to the 
passenger list, and take life easily. I confess to a con- 
stitutional make-up which renders it impossible for me 
to thoroughly enjoy taking my share of the detailed 
drudgery of sailing. I like to sleep when ten o'clock 
comes, though I am not greatly averse to taking my 
watch from nine to twelve ; but deliver me from stand- 



Among the Rocks in a Fog, 79 

ing at the cat-head on a drizzly night from twelve to 
four. I really do not like it. Up to midnight, time 
seems to wag along at a reasonable rate; but after 
that it seems as though the old fellow, with a feeling 
that most every body was asleep, and would not dis- 
cover his lapse, lay down once in a while and took a 
nap himself. 

Late on Sunday morning a gentle breeze broke the 
monotony of our life, and we found ourselves gliding 
along at about six knots an hour. The afternoon was 
lovely — 

" So calm, so cool, so bright. 
Bridal of earth and sky j" 

and the scene around us was well fitted to excite a 
thoughtful soul to worship. It required no great 
stretch of the imagination to make us feel that we 
were in a vast temple, in which no uttered sermon 
was necessary, since the whole scene preached to us 
with an eloquence not to be equaled by the most per- 
suasive periods. The roof of this vast temple was the 
arched sky, with its background of unutterably deep 
blue. It was frescoed by the ever -changing clouds, 
with their neutral tints. The hills on shore, and the 
lofty and rugged mountains in the dim distance, seemed 
like giant pillars, while for music we listened to the 
rippling waters as our sharp bow cut through them. 
We sat together on the forward deck, watching the 
land as it sped by us like the unfolding of a panorama, 
and sang hymns in which the sailors joined — for we 
had a very remarkable crew — and then bowed our- 
selves in prayer to Him who holdeth the waters in the 
hollow of his hand. There is a Sunday on the sea as 



8o Starboard and Port 

well as on the land, a kind of unwonted calm, which 
disposes to thoughtfulness. 

Only one thing tempted us. The birds — loons, ducks, 
and gulls — seemed to be aware of the character of those 
on board, and with a defiant kind of persistency settled 
within easy range. It was almost too much for Fletch. 
He saw half a dozen sea-pigeons on the larboard bow, 
and felt constrained to put his hands in his pockets 
and clinch his fists, lest he might be tempted to shoot. 
" Oh, if it were only Monday morning !" he exclaimed, 
as a flock lit on the water close to us, " wouldn't I 
make you suffer, though !" And once the opportunity 
was more than he could bear. He rushed into the 
cabin, got his double-barreled gun, and was about to 
draw a fatal bead, when he checked himself, evidently 
with a mighty effort, and carried his weapon back, 
muttering, " No, I won't shoot to-day ; but if you show 
your heads to-morrow, woe be unto you — that's all I 
say." 

On Monday came an experience which all on board 
will remember. We suffered a very narrow escape, 
and withal came so near to a disastrous end of our 
trip that we shall never cease to be thankful. It hap- 
pened in this wise. 

At about two o'clock in the morning I was roused 
from a deep sleep by the sharp cry — 

" Let her come about!" 

In an instant I was out of bed, and my clothes, as 
though they appreciated the situation, seemed to put 
themselves on me. I do not believe I was more than 
two minutes dressing. I groped my way through 
the cabin, and was soon on deck. The dull gray 



Among the Rocks in a Fog, 8i 

streaks of morning were tingeing the eastern horizon, 
and we could see perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead. 

" What's the matter, Captain ?" I said, as I saw 
Comstock, who was evidently in an unusual mood. 

" Rocks ahead, sir," he replied, somewhat sharply. 

I went forward, and saw, about one hundred yards 
off, a reef of hungry-looking rocks, toward which we 
had been directly heading, and on which we should 
have inevitably run had it been an hour earlier. The 
yacht lay too, her sails shivering in the wind, while we 
took in the situation, and made up our minds what it 
was best to do. 

" How came we here ?" I asked the pilot, who at 
that moment appeared on deck with the most dis- 
orderly toilet, one shoe off, and only one arm in the 
sleeve of his pea-jacket. 

" Why, we kept close inshore all day yesterday, 
and, though I shot her out into open water at night, 
the current has sucked us right back again among the 
rocks — that's what's the trouble. The truth is, this is 
a nasty coast ; there ought to be no night here at all, 
for it's not easy getting clear of these reefs even in the 
daytime." 

" Well, Cap, what shall we do ?" 

" The pilot must decide that question," he replied. 
" These are not Christian waters, and I don't know 
any thing about them. If I were only in a civilized 
place, now, I'd know where I was, but when a man 
gets down here, he gets beyond the reach of the Chris- 
tian religion." 

Just then the pilot, Edwards, came up to me, and 
said, 

D 2 



82 Starboard and Port 

" What shall we do, Mr. Hepworth— go on, or run in ? 
Country Harbor lies just to the norrard, and we can 
make a lee in the course of an hour or so. Just look 
there." 

I turned in the direction indicated, and saw to the 
southwest a huge bank of fog, which was coming 
toward us rapidly, and in a little while would prob- 
ably shut us in completely. We were hedged in by 
reefs, some just above water, and others just below, 
their positions indicated only by the white-caps above 
them. I said to Edwards, 

" Well, we want to get on as fast as possible. Even 
if the fog comes in, we are safe enough if we get eight 
or ten miles out ; and it ought not to be difficult to lay 
our course for the little Gut of Canso." 

" All right, sir," he replied, and the Nettie was head- 
ed for open water. We bowled along for a while, when 
it was suggested by some one that it would only take 
us five or six hours to get to Whitehead, while the fog 
might last for three days ; that when opposite White- 
head we should have to feel our way in, as we could 
not keep on our course ; that we wanted to get into 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence as soon as possible, and there 
was no use in running a hundred miles to the eastward 
of it. The prospect of spending three or four days in 
the fog outside of the Roaring Bull was not very in- 
spiring, and so I countermanded my order, and the 
yacht was put about. The man at the wheel had no 
sooner got his helm hard down than the fog came 
driving in like magic, and Edwards had just time to 
note the positions of the several rocks at the mouth 
of Country Harbor before all about us was thick, im- 



Among the Rocks in a Fog, 83 

penetrable darkness. I have been in fog many a 
time, but in none like that. It was impossible to see 
the length of the vessel. The moisture gathered and 
stood on our pea-jackets in large drops, keeping my 
eye-glasses so moist that I was compelled to take 
them off, which was well-nigh equivalent to being 
bHnd. 

There was a heavy swell on, but the wind was not 
too strong. Edwards had caught sight of the two 
principal reefs about half a mile ahead, and it was a 
great relief to us all when after sailing for fifteen min- 
utes we felt sure that we had passed them. Every 
man was on the forward deck except Fowler, who 
had the wheel. ' 

By and by the swell ceased, and we were in still 
water. We knew by that that we had passed to the 
northward of the headland, and were somewhere in- 
side the harbor. 

"" John, heave the lead," said the captain. 

Little John, as we called him, stood at the main- 
rigging, line in hand, while Big John took the end 
of the line with the lead- attached forward, and, giving 
it a swing, hurled it twenty feet ahead. 

" Fifteen fathom, and no bottom !" was the first cry. 

" Good ! Safe so long as we are in that depth of 
water, unless the rocks bring us up." 

" There ain't no rocks here," said Edwards. " We 
can't run into any thing except the beach. I want to 
get over on the other side, if possible, because there's 
good holding-ground there. We must be mighty near 
the norrard shore." 

" Ten fathoms !" shouted John. 



84 Starboard and Port, 

" Now, then, look out ahead there, and see if you can 
find land. One of you fellows crawl out on the jib- 
boom, and keep your eyes peeled." 

" Eight fathoms, shoaling !" 

" That's so, and shoaling altogether too fast." 

" Breakers right ahead !" cried the man on the jib- 
boom, and at that moment John yelled — 

" Four fathom !" 

*' Down with your helm," shouted the captain, and 
the Nettie, not lost yet, spun round as on a pivot. 

Now, then, for the other tack. We were certainly in- 
side the harbor, the water was so smooth, and it ought 
not to be very difficult to make the farther shore, 
where we could drop anchor in safety. - 

" Seven fathom !" 

The water was deepening, and we felt relieved. 
Even the dog seemed to be conscious of a sense of 
security, for he wagged his tail at John when he an- 
nounced the depth of water. 

" Ten fathom !" 

" Twelve fathom, and no bottom !" 

** Now, then, we must grope our way in this thick 
darkness to the other side." 

We sailed on for a while, when the order was given 
to slow her as much as possible. Fowler brought 
her up close to the wind, so that her sails began to 
flutter, and we forged ahead at a very modest rate. 

*' Heave the lead again !" ordered the captain. 

" Nine fathom !" was the first piece of news. 

*' Look out sharp, out there on the jib-boom !" 

" Aye, aye, sir !" came back the reply. 

" Eight fathom !" 



Among the Rocks in a Fog. 85 

Shoaling again. We were all huddled together near 
the fore-rigging — one with a single boot on, another 
without hat, another in his shirt sleeves — peering into 
the fog to catch a glimpse of land. 

" Seven fathom !" 

" Edwards, there's an iceberg right ahead of us," I 
said to the pilot. 

" No, it isn't," answered Ruloff, " it's a three -story- 
house." 

Whatever it was, it was close to us. 

" Hard alee !" yelled the captain ; " here's the land 
right aboard of us." 

" Down with the anchor !" 

The Nettie shook her canvas in the wind again, the 
chain rattled through the hawse-holes, and in a minute 
more we were riding safely at anchor. 

I noticed one peculiarity in every gentleman on 
board, which showed itself immediately after the 
anchor dropped. 

Bertric went up to Stigand, and said confidentially — 
" Do you know, Stigand, I think Hepworth was afraid. 
Now I was a good deal excited, but I never felt freer 
from fear in my life, myself." 

And Stigand went up to Ruloff, and in the same 
confidential whisper repeated the sentence concerning 
Algar, almost word for word. 

And Ruloff repeated it to Algar concerning Bertric, 
and so on, until each had defended his own prowess 
in solemn whisper to every member of the com- 
pany. 

The truth is we were all scared nearly out of our 
wits. No man who has the common North American 



86 Starboard and Port 

nervous organization, can go through such an experi- 
ence as that without feeling very decidedly frightened. 
For myself, I am willing to confess here, though I did 
not do it at the time, that for an hour and a half I was 
listening to hear the deep ^'thud" of the Nettie on the 
rocks. I fully expected to lose the boat, and would 
have willingly compromised with Fate for the safety of ; 
the party. 

I said to Edwards, 

*' Come, weren't you scared ?" 

He looked at me in a blank sort of way, and re- 
plied, 

** Skeered ? No ; but I was afraid we might tetch 
something comin' in." 

" That's what I was afraid of, and that's what I call 
being scared," I thought to myself, as I went aft. 

In about an hour the fog Hfted, and we saw what 
might have happened. What I thought an iceberg 
proved to be a huge boulder about fifteen or twenty 
feet square, which the fog had magnified. It was in 
just the position to save us. But for it we should 
have gone plump on the beach. As it was, we were 
so near that you could almost lower yourself from the 
end of the jibboom to the land. It was on the whole 
about as narrow an escape as I care to experience, and 
I regard it as one of those episodes which are well 
enough to look back upon, but which it is by no means 
agreeable to pass through. 



Trout and Mosquitoes. 87 




CHAPTER V. 

TROUT AND MOSQUITOES. 

'Among the plagues on earth which God has sent, 
Of lighter torment, is the plague of flies. 
Where wild America in vastness lies, 
There diverse hordes the swamps and woods infest ; 
Banded or singly, there make man their prize." 

Bishop of Quebec. 

EFORE we started from Halifax 
we engaged the services of a 
^ :S regular hunter. He was a char- 
^ acter worthy of study. He was 
already something over sixty 
years of age, and as hale and 
hearty as possible. He told me the story of his life 
one evening as we were sitting together; but I after- 
ward found him to be such an egregious manufacturer 
of facts that my former admiration somewhat sub- 
sided. He brought all his tents and camp utensils on 
board, and promised us rare fishing and hunting when 
we reached the woods — promises, however, which were 
by no means fulfilled. 

We found Country Harbor such a delightful place 
that we determined to remain in that region for a few 
days, and find out what sport was to be had. Its 
northern branch, a creek three miles long, is called 
Isaac's Harbor, and as this afforded a splendid lee 



88 Starboard and PorL 

against almost any wind, we brought the Nettie to an- 
chor in five fathoms, just off the little village on its 
western shore. 

Being in immediate want of provisions, I started out 
on a foraging expedition, and soon came across a fisher- 
man who had just harvested from his pots a load of 
lobsters. 

' *' Halloo, friend," I hailed, " will you let me have 
some of your freight?" He rowed alongside, and I 
picked out a dozen fine green fellows, who had just 
come out of the water, and had not yet got over their 
surprise at the new condition of things. 

" How much apiece ?" 

" Well, I reckon that generally they are worth about 
a penny apiece, but them dozen you can have for ten 
cents." 

I paid him the silver, and then his conscience seemed 
to smite him for charging me an exorbitant price, for 
he immediately picked out an immense lobster and 
added it to the twelve that were kicking and tearing 
each other in the bottom of the boat. 

This is certainly a paradise of cheap provisions, I 
thought, as we rowed to land. However, it is a state 
of things that never lasts long, and the habit of over- 
charging is easily acquired. 

We heard some geese quack, and at once went in 
search of the owner. She was discovered in a very 
neat but small house, to which was attached a hen- 
coop of gigantic proportions. 

" Will you do me the honor to sell me some fat gos- 
lings?" I inquired. 

** Well," she answered, " I don't generally sell noth- 



Trout and Mosquitoes, 89 

ing till Christmas, but there ain't no law agin it, I 
guess/* 

" Good ! If you will drive the flock up, I'll take my 
pick." 

'' Here, Matildy, drive them geese up here. Hurry 
up, now, and don't stop listenin' to their squawks !" 

Matildy, a fine specimen of physical femininity, stop- 
ped for a moment to take a look at us, and then start- 
ed for the shore, where the geese found plenty to eat. 
When the flock was penned, I picked out a goodly 
number, which were immediately caught, and most 
mercilessly deprived of their heads. 

*' Now, then, I want some chickens. Can I have 
them ?" 

" Would you as lief have hens ?" 

^* No, madam, I have a great preference for youth. 
Old age is respectable, and should always be regarded 
with reverence, but in a hen it is not a popular attri- 
bute." 

'■'■ Matildy, git some chickens." 

And such a skittering was never seen. The screech- 
ing bipeds rushed hither and yon, while Matildy, who 
enjoyed the sport, lifted her garments to her knees 
with one hand, and, rushing into their midst, caught 
them with the other. 

It was a very funny picture. The hens, aware of 
their fate, huddled together in one corner of the big 
coop, clucking to keep their spirits up, and hustling 
each other to get nearest the fence. Matildy, her 
black unkempt hair streaming down her shoulders, her 
coal-black eyes blazing with enjoyable excitement, 
crept stealthily up, her eye fixed upon the one she 



90 Starboard and Port 

wanted, and then, at the right moment, made a most 
masterly dash, while the songsters flew and rushed at 
every possible angle with loud cries of fear, and man- 
aged every time to clutch the right one by head, or 
tail, or legs. She quietly passed it to the old lady, 
then drove the hens into another corner only to repeat 
the successful manoeuvre. 

At last I cried, " Hold, enough !" and by that time 
there was quite a pile of headless bipeds, who were to 
be promoted from common chickens to chicken-pie. 

" Now then, how much for those geese ?" 

*'Well, I don't know. Do you think thirty cents 
apiece is too much ? If you do, why — " 

" Oh, no ; don't take any thing off of that estimate. 
They wouldn't taste good if I got them any cheaper. 

*'And the chickens; how much for them?" 

" Them chickens I didn't want to part with, and I'll 
have to charge you twenty-five cents a pair." 

These are actual prices. Of course, we added to the 
silver a jackknife for the boy, and a few cigars for the 
gentleman who owned the estate, and then regarded 
the purchase as a ridiculously cheap one. I speak of 
this incident the more in detail, because it was the 
only landing-place on the coast where provisions were 
not as dear, or, in most instances, dearer than in New 
York or Boston. What the people at the various sta- 
tions charge each other, I do not know ; but we found 
it impossible to get ice even, or any other provisions 
for the yacht, without being subjected to a process of 
extortion against which we more than once rebelled. 
Isaac's Harbor, however, is seldom visited by passing 
vessels. It is in the flower of Acadian innocence of 



Trout and Mosquitoes, 91 

those little games which wiser folks are accustomed to 
play. The people are slow, kind-hearted, and fearfully 
ignorant. There is no church in the village, and no 
school-house, and only those who are residents for a 
short time merely, and who come from other parts, 
take a newspaper. 

The scenery is delightful. The wooded hills form a 
green background, and the little houses, scattered along 
the single street, present from the distance a very pict- 
uresque appearance. The chief source of income is a 
large " lobster factory," by what misnomer called so I 
could never understand, which is carried on by foreign 
talent. These simple people visit their pots twice a 
day, earning by hard work very small and uncertain 
wages, and yet seem to be perfectly content with their 
lot. When questioned as to their desire to be doing 
something better, to be engaged in business by which 
they can acquire a competency, they open their eyes 
in wonder, and stare at you as though you were talk- 
ing in a dead language. No great ambition ever stirred 
them. They are quite content and happy with little, 
and would not take much trouble to get more. 

These are fair samples of the inhabitants all along 
the coast. They are dull and sluggish, and can hardly 
be hired, even by the promise of glittering wages, to 
do any unusual work. They love their fishing-boats, 
and have become so accustomed to a diet of fish and 
lobsters that they can scarcely be persuaded to eat 
any thing else ; and they have no purpose beyond set- 
ting a buoy or hauling a herring-seine. 

" Now then, boys, for our first experience in camp- 
ing out," I said that afternoon. 



92 



Starboard and Port 



" Good enough," was the unanimous response. 
'' Halloo, there, forward ! Nimrod !" 
"Aye, aye, sir!" 

" Have you ever fished in this region ?" 
" Indeed I have. There isn't a spot in this whole 
section of country as big as the palm of your hand 
where I haven't fished." 

"Well, are there any trout 
here ?" 

" Trout ? my goodness ! Why 
I've seerr trout so thick here 
that you couldn't cross the 
stream for them bumping against 
your legs." 

"Good! that's the place for 
us. Get your traps ready ; fold 
up your tent like an Arab " — he 
can enlarge the tents into a de- 
formity better than any Arab I 
ever read about — "and we will 
all quietly steal away." 
" Very good, sir." 
" Say, Nimrod, any game in 
the woods?" 

" Game ? I was out once rab- 
bit-hunting, when I was actually 
chased back to my tent by 'em. 
I shot at 'em for two hours, till my powder was gone, 
and then I beat 'em on the head with a club." 

" Ah ! Can we get just a couple for supper, do you 
think?" Supper was a serious question with Nimrod, 
and he at once came down to solid facts, and said. 




Trout and Mosquitoes. 93 

" I think Ah Bew " — that was his pronunciation — 
" had better put us up a few things. I'll see to 
it." 

For half an hour we were tolerably busy. Knap- 
sacks were filled with all the little necessities of careful 
housekeeping, such as towels, tooth-brushes, and bed-^ 
blankets, wolf- robes were tied up into the smallest 
possible bundles, and we were ready. 

Nimrod went ashore to engage the only two horses 
in the village, carrying our truck with him, and we fol- 
lowed in the gig. 

" Now, bundle your traps aboard the cart, gentle- 
men, for we have no time to lose ; we have eight miles 
to travel over rough roads, and with horses whose very 
best known speed is three and a half miles per — " 

" Day," broke in Bertric. 

With a lusty " get up !" arid an impatient "get away !" 
we started. 

If the people were slow, the horses were quadrupe- 
dal snails. A fair walk was the greatest speed we could 
enforce by the most vigorous appliances. 

" Boy," to the driver, " I'll give you a quarter if you 
will make that brute trot for four consecutive min- 
utes." 

The boy looked in blank amazement, first at the 
speaker, then at the shining quarter, and brought his 
whip down on the ribs of the horse, making them re- 
sound like a drum. The beast seemed to be taken by 
surprise, and actually made a motion as though he 
would trot, but thought better of it, and settled back 
into a more sullen walk than ever. 

We resigned ourselves to the situation, and gave our 



94 Starboard and Port, 

attention to the scenery, which was superb. The sun 
was sinking behind a bank of gray clouds, and when at 
last we reached the top of a knoll the country was 
spread out before us in undulating beauty, while in the 
far distance lay the harbor, with the Nettie lying quietly 
at anchor. Just then we entered the woods. 

'' I say, Nimrod, where are the rabbits?'* 

" Oh, they are further on." 

" Yes, a good ways further," said Stigand. 

" Are they, though ? Look there ! Stop your old 
horse, and let me out," said Fletch, in a whisper. 

It was unnecessary to stop the horse, however, for 
Fletch half jumped and half slipped over the back- 
board, and was drawing a bead on something which 
only he could see. 

'' Bang !" sounded the smooth-bore, and then Fletch 
rushed into the bushes, from which he presently 
emerged bringing as a trophy a fine fat gray rab- 
bit. 

" There's our supper, at any rate." 

" Didn't I tell you ?" cried Nimrod. 

" Jump aboard, Fletch ; it will be dark soon, and we 
want to get to a camping-ground as soon as possible." 

We could hear the rushing streams in the near dis- 
tance, and soon came upon one of the most romantic 
spots I ever beheld. 

A hill, well wooded, and with huge timber trees, 
sloped gently down to the water. There was hardly 
any underbrush to obstruct either view or travel. 
Moss-covered monsters of the forests, the dead giants 
of olden times, stretched their sad lengths along the 
ground, while the woodpecker made the air resound 



Trout and Mosquitoes, 95 

with the noise of his search for food. The river, or 
stream, for it was hardly more than that, boiled and 
rushed along a sinuous path, singing its way to the 
sea. Here and there it broke into a fall that splashed 
upon the rocks below; and anon it hurried down the 
steep incline, like a crowd of merry fairies, tumbling 
over one another, and laughing all the while. Then 
again it settled itself into the quiet of a pond for a few 
rods, filling the deep gullies, in which the speckled 
treasures lay watching for the moths and bugs, which 
were struggling to get free. 

" Now then, gentlemen, this is the spot in which to 
encamp. You, Stigand, take the axe, and cut us a 
straight pole, say about fifteen feet long, for the tent ; 
and you, Bertric, take the hatchet, and cut some pins 
to fasten the ropes with." 

" Well done, boys ! Now give us a lift, and up she 
goes." 

In a moment the tent was lifted in air, the side- 
ropes were pinned to the sod, and we had a cosy Httle 
house erected about ten feet in diameter. 

For supper we had hard-tack, strong coffee, without 
milk or sugar, a roasted rabbit, and cheerful conversa- 
tion. That was living fit for a king, and a great deal 
better than most kings enjoy. 

We cut knots of pine which served us well for light. 
Sticking them in the ground, half a dozen of them in a 
semicircle in front of the tent, we passed the evening 
in enjoying the novelty of our situation, and at ten 
o'clock wrapped the drapery of our couches about us, 
and lay down to pleasant dreams. 

Sunrise found us all awake. 



96 Starboard and Port, 

" Nimrod, get my trout-rod and fly-book, and I will 
furnish you with a royal breakfast. By the way, Ber- 
tric, what's the matter with your face ?" 

" Matter enough," said Bertric. " I am all on fire. 
A good million of mosquitoes have been feeding on 
me all night, and my face feels like a section of the 
Alleghany Mountains." 

Poor fellow! he was sadly bitten, and a sight to 
awaken pity in the most hardened heart. Numerous 
protuberances, great boulders of flesh, rose in uncomely 
grandeur all over his face. He had scorned the net- 
ting which the more careful had provided, and paid 
dearly for the neglect. I fumbled about my knapsack, 
found a bottle of ammonia, and soon managed to af- 
ford him some relief. 

The great drawback of these woods is the armies 
upon armies of predatory insects. In the daytime 
you are encompassed by a cloud of black flies and 
their tiny relations, which the Indians call *' no see 
*ems," they are so small. But the bite — oh, the bite is 
the biggest part of them. At night these pests retire 
from the field, only to be replaced by enormous mos- 
quitoes, which after a little render life entirely unde- 
sirable. 

Up in Labrador they have a legend which, while it 
satisfactorily accounts for the existence of these creat- 
ures, does not for that reason reconcile you to their 
predations. It is said that a certain saint, I believe 
it was a woman, was banished from heaven for dis- 
obedience to the commands of one of the higher 
angels, and condemned to live in a lonely and unin- 
habited part of the earth. The angel who was ap- 



Trout and Mosquitoes, 97 

pointed to carry out the sentence looked over the en- 
tire planet, but came across no spot so barren and 
lonely as Labrador, to which place he conducted the 
recreant. Time hung very heavy on her hands, as 
one would naturally suppose. The contrast between 
the Celestial City, with its genial companionship, and 
the rugged shores of Labrador, was sufficiently great 
to excite a sense of weariness. She prayed at length 
that something might be sent her, even if it were only 
a few flies. Her prayer was answered, and the mos- 
quito, the buelot, and the black fly were created. 
That saint got more than she wanted, I suspect, and 
I can not repress the feehng that the " higher angel " 
was a little hard on her. At any rate, since that time 
both saints and sinners alike have been bitten, until 
human nature has invented certain strong explosives 
with which to express its estimation of the gift. 

" I say, Nimrod, what fly shall I use ? The brown 
hackle or a v/hite moth, or what T 

*' You had better try a black moth this morning." 
He fumbled over my fly-book, and, picking out a deli- 
cate little fellow, made by Pritchard, said, " There, that 
will kill finely, I suspect ; try him." 

That delicate rod, which is the very apple of my 
eye, and which I have used on so many expeditions 
from the Adirondacks to the heart of Maine, was taken 
out of its case with great care, and put together with 
loving hands. It is a four-jointed rod, and weighs 
only eleven ounces. It was made for me years ago 
by a master workman, and one who had no little skill 
as an angler. It was twelve feet and a half long, and 
so well balanced that with care I could bring the tip 

E 



98 Starboard and Port, 

and the butt together. The butt . was of straight- 
grained ash, and as fine a piece of wood as I ever saw. 
The second joint was of hickory, and the third of 
greenheart, while the tip was of elastic cane. It had 
whipped a great many streams, and killed more fish 
than I can count. 

I fitted my click reel, on which was wound about 
forty yards of silk-and-hair line, into its accustomed 
groove, ran the line through the rings, and chose a deli- 
cate leader of gut about six feet long, to which I at- 
tached my black moth, and then felt ready for the prey. 

Now, kind reader, go down with me to the stream. 
How it boils just here ! It dashes over and by those 
rocks like a thing of life, but there's no use in casting 
the line just yet, for there are no trout here. Just be- 
low, down where those bushes hang over the stream 
and make a shade, there is a pool ; it must be five or 
six feet deep, and eight or ten feet across, and in that 
pool is our breakfast, if I do not mistake. Now then, 
make no noise, for the true angler delights to come on 
his prey unawares. Can you see him ? He is certain- 
ly there, waiting for us. He heads up stream, and is 
on the lookout for a little black moth that has ac- 
cidentally wet his wings and finds it hard to fly. I 
will reel in my line, except about four or five yards, 
and try him. There, that moth dropped just right, 
and is floating down over his nose. 

Heigh - ho ! What a rush ! He jumped clean out of 
the water. What a beauty he is ! Did you see his sil- 
ver belly and his crimson spots, as he flung the foam ? 
I've got him well hooked. Now watch, for he'll fight 
hard before he comes to net. There, he makes a rush 



Trout and Mosquitoes. 99 

for the dead log yonder. If he gets under it, good-bye, 
trout. I will bend the rod backward, and give him 
the butt, for he is crossing the stream, where he will 
suck the bottom and stay in the sulks. He took out 
five or six yards of line, which must be reeled back, 
and then for another fight. Now I give him a slight 
pressure, pricking his mouth with the hook, and he's 
up and off again. He pulls hard, and as the space is 
very narrow, I give him the butt again, and keep a 
heavy strain on him. Now, then, he's tired out. Take 
the net, Fletch, and put it under him, as tenderly as 
though you were his mother. Good ! now draw him 
out. How he kicks ! but he's safe. There's our break- 
fast, boy, all secure. 

He was safely landed, and when hung to the scales 
was found to weigh just two pounds and one ounce. 
No mean fellow for such a stream as this. 

After the sun got up pretty high I found the brown 
hackle the most killing fly. We fished for a couple of 
hours, sometimes crawling through the bushes, and 
once in a while losing our temper as the line got 
caught in a branch just out of reach, and sometimes 
wading up to our waists in the middle of the cur- 
rent. Ah ! but it was glorious sport. I did not think 
of the mosquitoes, but found it necessary on my ar- 
rival at the camp to use ammonia pretty freely. There 
was hardly a spot on my face as big as my finger-tip 
which was not ridged. Fletch was in the gayest of 
spirits, for it was his first experience in fly-fishing, and 
he had captured more than a dozen beauties. There 
are few things on earth that will compare in solid hap- 
piness with a thirty -minute fight with a two -pound 



lOO Starboard and Port, 

trout, in a stream where there are coverts, and which 
ends in a successful capture. 

We strolled through the woods in search of Nim- 
rod's army of rabbits, but found none. The old man 
was rather crusty as we teased him about his enor- 
mous stories, but regained his good temper when we 
assured him that the trout paid us well for the trip. 

Early in the afternoon we stowed our tent and bun- 
dles into the two wagons, and were deliberately dragged 
back to the village by the two Acadian horses. Hail- 
ing the Nettie^ we were soon on board, tired but happy, 
and indulging in the luxury of fried trout and baked 
potatoes. Altogether it was a charming time, and we 
agreed to make a white mark against it in our mem- 
ories and hearts. 



Larks and a Chat, loi 



CHAPTER VI. 

LARKS AND A CHAT. 

"Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 
Perhaps turn out a sermon." 

Burns. 

For every inch that is not fool is rogue." 

Dryden. 

ETWEEN Country Harbor and the 
Gut of Canso we had no wind at all, 
and were literally given over to all 
sorts of pranks and practical jokes. 
There was never a day in the whole 
trip when we succeeded in subtract- 
ing so many years from our general average of forty- 
two, and in putting on the reckless habits of boyhood. 
Nothing seemed to be too daring, and nothing too 
foolish to do. At one time the whole company were 
climbing the shrouds, hand over hand, and hanging 
from various heights. There was a deep-seated rivalry 
among us to reach the topmast. Many were the 
struggles, the plunges, the kicks, as though somewhere 
in the air an invisible platform was placed, from which 
to get a fresh impulse, but to no purpose. We all got 
out of breath at nearly the same moment, and came 
sliding down to the deck with a rapidity which burned 
the cuticle from more than one hand. After a man 




I02 Starboard and Port, 

has expended the last ounce of energy in the upward 
dimb, it is curious how anxious he is to get back to 
terra finna. He lets the rope slip through his fingers 
in the most reckless way, and pays for his carelessness 
with two or three bhsters. 

At another time we laid traps for each other, and 
once in a while a man would get caught in a most 
laughable and ridiculous predicament. Poor Stigand 
was quietly walking across the deck, when unwittingly 
he put his feet into a noose which lay in ambush, and 
in an instant Bertric and Ruloff, who had rove the line 
through a block at the foretop, hauled vigorously at 
the other end. Stigand was fairly trapped. The rope 
closed about his legs before he could extricate himself, 
and in a moment more he was lying flat on his back, 
while his pedals seemed about to take a trip to the 
mast-head. Such a shout of derision followed the suc- 
cess of the trick that the victim struggled until he was 
red in the face to get free. There are some events in 
life, however, to which resistance only adds misery. 
And this was one. Of course, the more he struggled 
the taughter the line was held, and the higher his legs 
ascended. When he had assumed a position almost 
perpendicular, but with the wrong end up, Bertric 
approached him to the music of the old song, " Come 
into my parlor, said the spider to the fly." 

'' Well, here I am. Sir Spider. What is your gracious 
pleasure," moaned Stigand. 

" Do you forgive me for every thing I have ever 
done to you T said Bertric. 

" Yes, I'll forgive you, if you let me down before I 
have a fit of apoplexy," said Stigand. 



Lar^s and a Chat 103 

" And for every thing I shall do to you in the fut- 
ure ?" queried Bertric. 

*' Yes, yes, every thing," said Stigand. 

"And do you forgive me for that?" said Bertric 
again, giving his victim a poke in the ribs. 

" No, sir !" cried Stigand, struggling to get free. But 
the rope had been fastened to the shrouds, and he was 
evidently in for the whole play. 

" Once more I ask, will you forgive me for that ?" 
said Bertric, as he repeated the stroke. 

" Yes, I forgive any thing and every thing," yelled 
Stigand, growing purple. 

" Then let him down," and Ruloff unfastened the 
line. 

Stigand got on his feet good-naturedly, and simply 
said, " Bertric, I owe you one ;" and then quoted with 
great effect a part of the little speech of Shylock : 
" The villainy you teach me I will execute ; and it 
shall go hard but I will better the instruction." 

It was scarcely an hour before Stigand had ample 
revenge. We had on board an overgrown fish-horn, 
used to warn neighboring vessels in a fog. It was 
fully six feet long, and from its awful mouth pro- 
ceeded sounds terrible enough to scare the good tem- 
per from the sunniest constitution. When we were 
all disposed to be quiet, and each, book in hand, had 
taken his place in some shady part of the deck, under 
lee of foresail or mainsail, Bertric, by some unlucky 
chance, came across this instrument of musical torture, 
and instantly saw larks in the distance. 

He crept up behind me, as I lay absorbed in the 
mysteries of Blunt's " Coast Pilot," and, placing the 



I04 Starboard and Port 

mouth of the horn within six inches of my tympanum, 
blew a blast sufficiently sonorous to awaken the dead. 

Heaven defend you, if you ever have such an experi- 
ence. When reading a quiet and somewhat somnifer- 
ous volume, like the one I have named, the mind nat- 
urally takes upon itself a calm and serene mood, and 
unsuspiciously views all things through the me- 
dium of its own repose. To be roused from such a 
condition by a blast that would do honor to the lungs 
of some indignant ogre is like waking up from a 
sound sleep with the cry of '' Fire !" in your ears. I 
jumped to my feet in an instant, and turned upon the 
invader of my peace with as strong an expletive on my 
lips as I could lay hold of, and met his smihng coun- 
tenance beaming on me with such an innocent sense 
of pleasure that the word died before it escaped the 
dental barrier ; and simply murmuring those household 
words, '■'■ Let us have peace," lay down again to ex- 
plore the labyrinths of Blunt. 

Urged by his victory over me, he looked about for 
another victim on whom to expend his nervous energy. 
His eye fell on Stigand. Now this gentleman, scarce- 
ly recovered from the exhaustion incident to his per- 
formances on the tight rope, had satisfactorily disposed 
himself on the wolf-skin which he had placed on deck 
close to the skylight. Bertric took in the situation 
with all its possibilities at a glance. He managed to 
get down into the saloon unobserved, and, putting his 
horn through the skylight, and close to the recumbent 
Stigand, blew till his cheeks were in danger of burst- 
ing, then suddenly withdrew the horn. Stigand, who 
was writhing under the infliction, saw an opportunity 



Larks and a Chat, 105 

for revenge. He got up quickly, and rushed to the 
cook's galley — 

*' Steward ! a quart pot — quick !" 

" Yes sir, yes sir," said Ah Boo, as he hurried to the 
hanging tins, and, selecting a tin quart pail, gave it to 
Stigand. 

Stigand drew a bucket of salt water, filled the tin 
pail, and then quietly took his position at the skylight, 
as though nothing had happened. He heard the low 
chuckle of Bertric in the depths below, and waited 
patiently until his turn should come. Nor did he 
have to wait long, for Bertric, thinking that a good 
thing is worth doing twice, slyly pushed the horn 
through the skylight, and put it to his mouth for 
another blow. 

By this time we all saw what was going on, and 
watched the issue with vast merriment. 

No sooner had Bertric got the horn in position and 
opened his mouth for an effort, which, if it had been 
given, would have burst any tympanum of ordinary 
thickness, than Stigand emptied the entire contents 
of the pail into the hollow tube. The sound was just 
coming out, but it was met half-way by the all-con- 
quering water. We heard a gulp, a sputter, a groan, 
as the liquid struck the lips, entered the mouth, and 
forced itself half-way down the throat of Bertric, who, 
taking the horn from his lips, was drenched from head 
to foot, and then we all broke out in a shout that made 
the welkin ring. 

Bertric, however, does not easily lose his balance. 
He good-naturedly put his head out of the companion- 
way, and said, "Gentlemen, shall I get your umbrellas ? 

E2 



1 66 Starboard a^id Port. 

I think it is raining," and then retired to put on a dry 
suit of clothes. 

'' I think we are all boys to-day," I said to Rulofif, 
when the confusion had subsided. 

" Well, and why not be ?" he answered. " We are 
men eleven months in the year, and can afford for a 
few weeks to go back to fifteen. A little fun hurts no 
man. Besides, you know the saying of that famous 
Greek ?" 

'' What was it ?" I inquired. 

" That a man who isn't a fool half the time is a fool 
all the time," said Ruloff, with great emphasis. '' We 
are enjoying the one half now, and I don't doubt it 
will enable us to be w^ise men the rest of the year. I 
have a theory that every man must at short intervals 
go back to fifteen, or he will never be able to bear fifty 
gracefully. Our boyhood ought to send its rays of 
laughter through our manhood, just as the Northern 
Lights shoot into the darkness of midnight. Tom 
Moore says that — 

* Old Socrates, that pink of sages, 
Kept a pet demon, on board wages, 
To go about with him incog, 
And sometimes give his wits a jog ;' 

and for the same purpose we keep the demon of fun, 
not ' on board wages,' but on board ship. To be 
grave at such a time as this is like turning Mother 
Goose into stately Latin." 

'' By the way," I said, " that last remark reminds me 
that it seems to have been a pleasant pastime for some 
of the quaint scholars of England to do exactly that 
thing." 



Larks and a Chat. 107 

" What thing ?" asked Ruloff. 

^' Why, translating Mother Goose into the vernacular 
of Jove and Venus. Nearly all of the old lady's verses 
have been funnily rendered, as, for instance, the famous 
story which begins with the ejaculation ' Hey, diddle, 
diddle,' and goes on with a pathetic recital of the 
prowess of the cow and the knavery of the dish." 

" Indeed, and how does it sound in the tongue of 
Cicero ?" said Ruloff. 

" Thus," I answered. " Listen to this piece of his- 
tory when properly set up in Roman characters : 

* Hei didulum, atque iterum didulum ! Felisque fidesque ; 
Vacca super lunae cornua prosiluit ; 
Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi, 
Abstulit et turpe laux cochleare fuga.' 

" That," I continued, ** was the work of no less a per- 
sonage than Henry Douey, vicar of Wilton." 

That same afternoon we were all sitting on the quar- 
ter-deck, thoroughly enjoying the scene as we hurried 
through the water, the spray being thrown on deck as 
far aft as the mainmast. The cold, gray shore, which 
not even the brilliant sunlight could charm into a 
bright mood, lay only three or four miles off. The 
dog seemed to have caught the spirit of the view, and 
lay at our feet dreaming of happy hunting-grounds. 

" What are you thinking of, Bertric ?" said Algar, as 
he threw a coil of rope over the prostrate form of the 
former. 

*' Thinking of? Do you imagine I can make the ef- 
fort to think ? I am enjoying the very luxury of liv- 
ing ; I am thinking of nothing, and am happy." 

'' Good," broke in Ruloff; "' I am in your condition. 



io8 Starboard and Port. 

I am in perfect repose, such as I always supposed 
Brahma enjoys as he sleeps the eternities away on a 
downy bed of clouds." 

" Well," said Algar, " I have been guilty of wonder- 
ing. I don't believe my brain is vigorous enough to 
actually think; but it has occurred to me to wonder 
what kind of vessels those sixteenth -century fellows 
made their trips in. How do you suppose they would 
compare with the Nettie^ for instance ? Does any body 
know?" 

*' For one," answered Stigand, " I am only interested 
in the Englishmen, who came across on the northerly 
line. The Spaniards went south, and my antislavery 
principles will not allow me to have any respect for 
them." 

*' Yes, yes ; you are right," cried Bertric, managing to 
get up on his elbow — '' you are right, Stigand. Take, 
for instance, that old salt — what's his name ? Oh, yes, 
Gilbert ; Humphrey was his cognomen, with a Sir pre- 
fixed — a very jolly old tar, who went down to the 
bottom after the most approved fashion. Can't some 
of you brush up your memories, and tell us about it ? 
I had to learn it once for playing truant at school, 
and it gave me a taste for the sea which I haven't 
got over yet." 

" I would like to have seen that sturdy old sailor, 
and have often wondered what he looked like," said 
Ruloff. '' He must have been a bronze giant to en- 
dure all he went through." 

" True," said Algar. " There is a pen-picture of him 
somewhere in English history. If I remember rightly, 
he was a person of prepossessing manners, and of such 



Larks and a Chat. 109 

noble bearing that you would have picked him out in 
a crowd as a remarkable man. He was over six feet 
in height, with an Immense chest, and a voice that be- 
tokened hearty good-nature. In complexion he was 
rather light, and in temperament sanguine. He was 
noted for his enthusiasm, his courage, his patriotism, 
and, oddly enough, for his eloquence. Elizabeth was 
so pleased with the success of his first voyage that she 
gave him, as a mark of her royal esteem, an emblemat- 
ical jewel. I think It was a small anchor of beaten 
gbld, with a large pearl at the peak ; and he was so 
proud of this mark of distinction that he ever after 
wore it at his breast." 

"Let me see," said Ruloff; "didn't Raleigh, who 
did a handsome and very gentlemanly thing for Eliza- 
beth, have something to do with that expedition ?" 

" No, I think not," said Algar, who was rubbing his 
forehead to electrify some facts which seemed to have 
a paralysis. " No, he came near going, but my Impres- 
sion is he backed out. Gilbert, who was a sort of half- 
brother, started off alone." 

" It was some time in June or July, and the year was 
1583, when he turned his bows toward these shores," 
broke in Stigand. " At any rate, he landed in what is 
now St. Johns in August of that year." 

"And he had four or five vessels," said Ruloff, "not 
one of which was nearly as large as the Nettie. I 
wonder they were willing to trust themselves in the 
middle of the Atlantic in such tubs." 

" There, my friend, you are mistaken ; for his biggest 
vessel was the Delight^ and she measured one hundred 
and twenty tons, or just ten tons more than the one 



no Starboard and Port, 

we are in," cried Bertric, coming to the defense of 
Gilbert. 

"■ Still," said Ruloff, '' I insist that she was no larger 
than the Nettie, after all; for she was as blunt as a 
sperm-whale's head, and as flat in the bows as a three- 
story wooden house, and that counts for at least ten 
tons carpenter's measurement." 

"But who knows the size of the other vessels?" I 
asked. ''Does any one?" 

"Does any one?" said Algar, defiantly. "You must 
remember the company you are in, sir. I can tell you 
the name and the tonnage of every vessel in that 
fleet." 

" You can't do it," said we all at once. 

"Now listen. There was the Delight ; she was one 
hundred and twenty, and had a covered deck, and ran 
up to a point at the poop like a Chinese junk. Then 
there was the Golden Hind, which was only fifty tons. 
Then came the Swallow, of the same size. And, lastly, 
the Squirrel, which no respectable man would care to 
go round Cape Cod in, and she was only ten tons." 

"Yes," said Ruloff, who had been cudgeling his 
brain, and raking up the almost forgotten lore of other 
days, redolent of birch and foot-ball and fireworks, 
"and on board those few vessels were two hundred 
and sixty men, who didn't care a rush-light for the 
New World, but only for the gold they thought to dig 
up. There were broken-down musicians, who wern't 
fit to grind a hand-organ, but who could twang the 
strings well enough to soothe the savage breast, and 
charm the gold ornaments out of his ears. For freight, 
Gilbert took toys with which to tickle the fancy of 



Larks a7id a Chat, 1 1 1 

the noble red man, and, last, a lot of hobby-horses, for 
what earthly purpose I could never conceive." 

"Good!" said Stigand ; "just imagine a wild Indian 
on the coast of Nova Scotia, brandishing a scalp in one 
hand, while with the other he held the reins and guided 
the uncertain steps of a hobby-horse. What an im- 
posing picture ! It only needs the war-whoop to make 
it complete." 

" Gentlemen, we'll have no levity, if you please," I 
said, with stern severity. " I am anxious to know the 
fate of those craft." 

" Well, the company no sooner landed than they got 
into a row. There was no gold to be had ; and though 
they passed a fleet of more than one hundred vessels 
engaged in the sedentary occupation of the cod-fishery, 
they concluded not to get a living in an honest way, 
but fell to cutting each other's throats — an occupation 
which does not conduce to a successful enterprise." 

" But the vessels ?" asked Bertric. 

" The Delight^ their stand-by, was lost soon after 
their arrival, and the Swallow was sent home with a 
score of sick men on board. A while after, the party 
started for Europe in the Golden Hind and the Squir- 
rel. The Squirrel was the flag-ship, with Gilbert on 
board." 

"I can't conceive why such a shrewd old fellow as 
he should choose a boat of ten tons for a flag-ship in 
which to cross the ocean," said Stigand. 

" Exactly," answered Bertric ; "but perhaps the Gold- 
en Hind was a little soft in her timbers, or, better still, 
perhaps the old gentleman wanted to spend the time 
with the smallest number; for it must be. confessed 



1 1 2 Starboard and Port, 

that his expedition was made up of the raggedest and 
most villainous set of men that could be scraped out 
of the slums of a British seaport." 

" Yes, but Gilbert died splendidly ; and that last 
scene off the Azores used to make my blood tingle," 
said Ruloff. 

" If the story is true," broke in Algar, '' it was cer- 
tainly heroic. He was sitting on deck in a storm, and 
when the little tea-cup of a craft was swallowed, he 
was heard to say, * Cheer up, boys ; we are as near to 
heaven by sea as by land.' " 

" That strikes me as being very heroic," said Bertric ; 
" and it touches the highest note of that daring which 
has shed lustre upon those two centuries of adventure. 
But why do you say, ' if true ?' " 

"Why?" replied Algar; "because there is an air of 
improbability about the whole story, and an actual im- 
possibility connected with that part of it." 

" No, no, no, no," we all chimed in ; " you can't 
break our image down in that way. You heretical 
iconoclast ! the story is too good not to be true. The 
internal evidence is in its favor." 

" The internal evidence is against it, as you shall 
confess," said Algar, defiantly. " Now listen. '■ He 
was heard to say, " Cheer up, boys," ' etc. Is not that 
the way the story runs ? and doesn't History herself 
laugh when she puts those words in his mouth ?" 

" Certainly he was heard to say it," we answered. 

" And by whom was he heard ?" queried Algar. 

"Why, by those on board the Golden Hind, to be 
sure," said we. 

"Ah, indeed !" said Algar; "how far off do you sup- 



Larks and a Chat, 113 

pose the Golden Hind was at that moment ? Not less 
than one hundred yards, at least ; and even that prox- 
imity would have been exceedingly dangerous." 

'' Well, what then T we said. 

" Only this," he replied, '' that in an Atlantic gale, 
when the wind was blowing hard enough to blow the 
Squirrel to Davy Jones's locker, the remark which Sir 
Humphrey is said to have made could not have been 
heard. Why, when the wind is blowing hard, and the 
Nettie is swashing into the sea, you can hardly hear the 
captain give his orders — and that when a man has been 
stationed amidships to catch them and hurl them for- 
ward. And how is a vessel that is a full hundred yards 
off going to hear a passing remark which is made by a 
captain to his own men? You see the thing is false 
on the face of it." 

" Yes — but history," began Stigand. 

"Oh, pshaw! what is history?" said Algar. "I 
don't believe every thing I hear — do you ?" 

" Supper ready, sir," said Ah Boo ; and so ended the 
tilt. Who had the better of the contest I leave you 
to decide. 



114 Starboard and Port, 



CHAPTER VII. 

A SAND-BANK AND A FIGHT. 

"And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time." 

Longfellow. 

"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility; 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger : 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood." 

Shakespeare. 

HE wind was light all the next day, 
and it seemed as though we should 
never get beyond the ragged rocks of 
Nova Scotia ; but in the early after- 
noon we sighted White Head, and by 
four o'clock, with a gentle breeze, managed to run it 
down. 

While we were sailing on so smoothly I said to the 
captain, 

"Cap, where away does Sable Island bear from 
here?" 

" Let me see," he replied, pondering, and taking his 
direction from the compass; *' about there, I should 
say," pointing with his hand; "as nigh E.S.E. as you 
can make it out. And a horrible place it is." 

Sable Island is a great curiosity, whose history is lit- 




A Sand -bank and a FighL 115 

tie known by the people at large. It is a bank of sand, 
situated about one hundred miles from the mainland, 
and right in the track of vessels from Europe. It is 
about thirty miles long, and one and a half in width, 
and presents the general shape of a bow. By what 
force or forces it ever came to thrust its head up above 
water, and insist upon being called land, when by good 
rights it ought to be a part of the bottom of the sea, 
no one can tell. On the north of the island there are 
as many as sixty fathoms of water, and not many miles 
to the southward it deepens to three hundred fathoms. 
This vast sand-hill rises from this enormous depth just 
for the sake of getting in the way of navigation. It 
subserves no other conceivable purpose than to be- 
guile unwary craft into its shoal waters, and keep them 
there until they go to pieces. It is so cunning in its 
geological demonism that, instead of lifting its front 
like a cliff from the sea, that the inward and outward 
bound might be warned of its proximity, it lies very 
low, only a few feet above the surface, assuming a dull 
gray color, not unlike the ocean in a cloudy day, and 
stretches its shoals out for miles, with only six or ten 
feet of water on them ; so that when a vessel thinks she 
has given the island a good berth, just then her keel 
grinds on the sand, and the ship and cargo are lost to 
a certainty, while the passengers must struggle with a 
heavy and remorseless surge in order to save their 
lives. It always seemed to me, as I looked at it on 
the chart, like Victor Hugo's devil - fish lying on 
the water, with his smooth but treacherous back jus-t 
above the surface, and his little hillocks of eyes peer- 
ing around the horizon for a stray sail, while his long 



1 1 6 Starboard and Port, 

tentacles of shoals are stretched out for sixteen miles 
in one direction and twenty-eight in another, a dan- 
gerous foe to all passers-by. 

And great spoil the sandy monster has had in times 
past. Of late years such a wholesome dread of it has 
pervaded the minds of our merchants that they have 
changed the course of their vessels, which now sail 
along a more southerly line, and so keep out of its 
reach. But the stories it could tell of shipwreck and 
disaster would make the world's blood curdle in its 
veins, while each particular hair would stand on end in 
horror. It is worth your while, if you are not well up 
in geography, to take down the atlas, and look out 
this weird monster of the deep. You will find it due 
south from Cape Breton. 

The surface of the island, which is composed of sand 
without a rock, is low and undulating, like a Western 
prairie. Throughout its length and breadth there is not 
a single tree or good-sized shoot to be found. Its only 
productions are a strong kind of grass, known as sea- 
matweed, with here and there a whortleberry patch 
and some cranberry bushes. Even the grass refuses to 
grow, except in the low places by the shore, where it is 
continually washed by the incoming waves. When the 
wind blows a gale, the loose sand is borne aloft like a 
cloud, sometimes even burying, as a waterspout does 
when it strikes an unfortunate vessel, those poor ship- 
wrecked creatures who are looking about for a shelter. 
When the wind dies away, you find here and there con- 
ical hills from fifty to a hundred feet high, which have 
been piled up by the capricious northwester, and which 
during the next week, perhaps, will be taken up again 



A Sajid-bank and a Fight, 117 

almost bodily by the gale and deposited in another 
part of the island. It is a huge graveyard with shift- 
ing sepulchres, for even the dead are allowed no rest. 
Their bones are exposed by every storm, and hurried 
here and there to be reburied again by the changing 
sands when the gale is over. 

It is said that no one who has not actually witnessed 
a storm on this frightful spot can even imagine its hor- 
rors. The mountainous waves come rolling over the 
great deep with the steady tread of an army corps of 
giants in a battle-charge, their white crests floating in 
the wind, and strike this thirty miles of shore with such 
a shock that the whole island sensibly vibrates beneath 
one's feet, while the thunder of the dashing waters 
sends dismay to the stoutest hearts. The whole 
southern end is covered with timber, which has either 
been driven thither by the current or torn from wrecks 
and hurled ashore. 

The Marquis de la Roche was the first man who 
visited this island with an intention to colonize. By 
the orders of Henry IV., he sailed from France in 
1598, carrying with him a number of convicts. It was 
a notable custom in the Old World to ship off its un- 
ruly elements, and to sow them in the fields of the 
New World like dragon's teeth. The Marquis in- 
tended at first to land his precious freight of rogues 
on the Nova Scotia coast, and to start a nice little 
piratical village, with himself as the head of the Ring. 
By some unfortunate chance, however, he sighted Sa- 
ble Island on his way, and it struck him that, being 
a somewhat secluded spot, he would make his first ex- 
periment there. He consequently landed his forty 



ii8 Starboard and Port 

thieves, and then started to make explorations along 
the coast to the westward, intending to give his little 
colony a call on his way back. He was driven by 
stress of weather, and compelled to return to France 
without the expected visit. 

The convicts had a rough time of it, and learned by 
heart that passage of the Scriptures which says that 
the way of the trangressor is hard. They had plenty 
of time for meditation, but nothing to eat, and no roof 
for their heads. They would have miserably perished 
had not a French ship run on the sand-bar, and stuck 
fast until she went to pieces. They found on board 
provisions to supply their wants for a time, and some 
sheep, which they killed, as they were pressed by hun- 
ger. From the torn timbers of the wreck they formed 
huts, which they thatched with the briers and grass of 
the island. 

Seven years after, when Chetodol, the pilot of De la 
Roche, was sent by the king to bring them back to 
France, only twelve were found alive. They were 
dressed in the skins of the seals they had managed to 
kill, and were altogether in such a squalid and dis- 
tressing condition that the royal heart was moved by 
their story of privation to give them a gratuity of fifty 
crowns each. The pilot, with an eye to business, had 
kept very still about the king's orders, and, as though 
he had only chanced on shore, promised to take them 
aboard his vessel if they would give him all the skins 
they had collected, which they willingly agreed to do. 
They, however, discovered the fraud, and after their 
return to France instituted against him a lawsuit, 
which ended in the recovery of large damages, with 



A Sand -bank and a Fight, 119 

which they were enabled to enter into trade with the 
Indians. 

Some time afterward the Portuguese, out of their 
pity for the distresses of those who had the misfortune 
to strike keel on these inhospitable sands, landed a lot 
of calves, which in a few years stocked the island ; but, 
such is man's unprincipled love of gain, a horde of ad- 
venturers killed them all off for the sake of their hides 
and tallow ; or, rather, for three generations gangs 
of men visited the place, summer after summer, and 
hunted until the last beef was killed. A second time 
the island was stocked, and a second time the cattle 
were all destroyed. This excited such indignation in 
the hearts of all generous people that a proclamation 
was issued by Governor Armstrong at Annapolis, for- 
bidding these predations under penalty of a severe 
sentence, which caused a lull in the robberies for a 
time. At length, however, the old habits were re- 
sumed, and the island was once more left to the mercy 
of marauders. 

Subsequently were landed from a wreck a number 
of ponies, sturdy little fellows, who seemed to have an 
appetite for sand and sea-matweed. They multipHed 
vigorously for a great many years, and at last increased 
beyond the means of support. Then, again, some rab- 
bits and some hogs drifted ashore, and with them a 
few score of rats — so the wrecked mariner could 
have a course dinner after the custom of his native 
land. If a Frenchman, he could dine off a Shetland 
pony, with tenderloin steak and a roast rib ; if a China- 
man, and he wanted a good bill of fare, he could stew 
the rats to his heart's content, and while picking the 



I20 Starboard and Port, 

juicy bones dream of the flowing pigtail of his father 
in Hong Kong ; if an Englishman, he could shoot a 
young steer, and make plans for the future over his 
slice of roast beef. 

Since the beginning of this century a superintendent 
with several employees have been stationed on the isl- 
and, supplied with sufficient means to render assistance, 
and to provide comfortably for those who are driven 
ashore. A government vessel visits the place at 
stated intervals, to keep up the necessary stock of 
provisions, clothing, and medicines, and to take off the 
shipwrecked. Still it is not the place that would be 
chosen for a summer residence, but only a wild, weird, 
ghostly sand-bank, that will have many a story to tell 
on the morning of the resurrection. 

" Now then," said the pilot, who had been listening 
attentively to our talk of Sable Island, and who had 
knowingly, nodded assent to our descriptions of the 
place, " as soon as we get clear of Roaring Bull Rock, 
we will turn the yacht's nose to the norrard, and get 
into still water. Halloo ! there comes a whiff." 

We had been lazily lounging along for such a length 
of time that it was an inexpressible relief to see the 
sail fill, and feel the Nettie heel over. Little Canso 
Light is situated on an exceedingly picturesque island, 
and stands out against the sky to the eastward, as one 
turns toward the north, with its alternating zones of 
black and white. The larger craft find it necessary to 
keep well off shore in passing it, because of the reefs 
and ledges whose ragged edges would have little mercy 
on a vessel ; but our best course was inside and to the 
westward, and we soon found ourselves as by magic in 



A Sand -bank and a Fight 121 

a good lee, and keeping company with a score or two 
of lumbermen, fishing -vessels, and other craft. The 
entrance to the harbor of Little Canso is all we could 
wish, while the exit is through a channel so narrow 
that you can throw a biscuit to either shore. The vil- 
lage consists of possibly fifty houses, and their chief 
business seems to be the supply of vessels to and from 
the fishing-grounds of the Gulf. To eke out a living 
beyond that afforded by the barter indicated — such as 
the sale of hob-nailed boots that wear out in a fort- 
night, because they are provided in unstinted gen- 
erosity with brown-paper soles, and the occasional dis- 
posal of woolen shirts, which with ordinary use will 
last until they are washed, and which at that critical 
moment emulate the example of the parson's " one 
hoss shay," and simply vanish into shreds — they cure 
innumerable cod-fish. That esculent is to be found m. 
quantity in every spot on the coast where two or three 
houses assume the style of a village. It greets you at 
every anchorage, and on the whole has a tendency to 
effect a decline in your appetite for a breakfast of that 
generally toothsome material. 

We gave the town a gun as we passed, by way of 
" How do you do," and then shot like an arrow through 
the narrow passage and out into the still and delight- 
ful waters of Chedebucto Bay. The dog grew restless 
the moment the land became a possibility to his ca- 
nine consciousness ; and when it came up within fair 
swimming distance, he put his paws on the rail, snuffed 
the air from the hills, and set up a piteous howl, which 
made us feel that in some former stage of his existence 
he had been a fisherman, or, better still, a shopkeeper, 

F 



122 Starboard and Port, 

who, as a penalty for his iniquity, had been doomed 
to pass ten or twelve years inside the ribs of a quad- 
ruped. At any rate, we were compelled to hold him 
by the collar to keep him from landing. 

We sailed across Chedebucto Bay, seventeen miles, 
in just an hour and twenty minutes. Away off on the 
right, like a ghostly shore, rose the dim outlines of 
Cape Breton, while on the left was Eddy Point Light, 
at the entrance of the Big Gut of Canso. About fif- 
teen miles from the entrance is Port Mulgrave, where 
we expected letters, and at half- past seven we came 
up to the wind and dropped anchor. 

** Down with the boat, boys, and we'll soon hear 
from home." 

These were cheering words, and in ten minutes we 
were climbing up the ladder on the wharf, and in less 
time than it takes to write it we were breaking open 
sundry envelopes, and getting the first news from 
those we had left behind. 

This Gut of Canso is certainly one of the pleasantest 
spots on earth in summer. We had long ago wearied 
of the clay slates and other metamorphic rocks of Nova 
Scotia, grand in their barrenness, and were delighted 
with the refreshing and many-shaded green of the 
richer soil to the north. It was like coming suddenly 
from stony and unproductive fields into a fragrant 
flower-garden. 

We were all the more interested in Port Mulgrave 
because it is diagonally opposite Port Hastings, which 
is on the Cape Breton side of the Gut, and the termi- 
nus of the Atlantic Cable, and the beginning of the lines 
of the Western Telegraph. An incredible number of 



A Sand'bank and a Fight. 123 

operators live in a large square wooden house there, 
and their cunning fingers are kept constantly busy 
transmitting messages to the East and West. 

We saw there one of the most remarkable dogs I 
have ever heard of. He must not be forgotten in this 
narrative. He was a pure Newfoundlander, of the 
short-haired species. The long-haired dogs are not 
looked upon with much favor by those who have an 
eye more to the practical value than to the beauty of 
the animal. Nothing certainly is more dignified or 
majestic of mien, save perhaps the St. Bernard, than 
the shaggy, full-grown, and well-bred Newfoundland 
dog; but he is almost valueless as a retriever, since 
his long hair holds so much water that he is soon tired 
out, and easily catches cold. 

We were all standing on the wharf when the owner 
of the canine came up, and said very courteously, 

" Did you ever see a dog dive and swim under water, 
sir?" 

'' Certainly not," I replied. 

With that introduction to a very curious exhibition, 
he whistled Dick to his side. The wharf was about 
six feet out of water, and the water was about seven 
feet deep. The owner seemed to be on very intimate 
terms with the animal, saying to him, 

" Now, Dick, I want you to do your level best. Do 
you hear, sir ?" 

Dick wagged his tail, as though he perfectly compre- 
hended the remark, and announced that he was ready 
for the ordeal by sundry low growls, which none but 
his master could interpret. 

Taking a flat stone in his hand, the gentleman 



124 Starboard and Port, 

showed it to the dog, saying, *' Now, Dick, I want 
you to bring that up from the bottom ;" and then 
gave it a toss. 

Dick watched it with eager eyes as it fell with a 
splash, and sidled its way, now in one direction and 
now in another, to the bottom, then with a leap he 
struck the water just above where the stone fell, swam 
to the bottom, grasped it in his teeth, and brought 
it in triumph to the surface. 

" That 'ere dorg is mor'n half fish," was the criticism 
of a bystander; and this so perfectly expressed our 
own convictions that we silently patted Dick on the 
head, and gave him a cracker as a reward of merit. 

" Now then, Nimrod," I said next morning, " where 
can we get some salmon-fishing ?" 

" In the Margaree River," he promptly replied. ** I 
have just come from there, and had very good luck. I 
caught several fish weighing over twenty pounds, and 
I think you will not be sorry if you go there." 

" Margaree River ? John, get out the chart, and we 
will study geography." 

" I say, pilot, is there enough water to float us at 
the mouth of the Margaree ?" 

" No, sir, there's just water enough to run you on a 
bar. It's an awful harbor, with no lee." 

"Yes — but we want some salmon." 

" Well, you can go to Port Hood, that's mor'n forty 
mile to the suth'ard, where we can anchor, and you 
can take teams, and go on overland." 

That struck us as a good idea, and we thought it 
would be larks to take a trip of that kind. It would 
vary our experience in a charming way. 



A Sand -bank and a Fight. 125 

Very late that night we arrived at Port Hood, which 
is not a good place to enter in the dark. You take 
your course mainly by soundings, finding the channel, 
and keeping in it, if you can, which with the wind 
ahead is not an easy thing to accomplish. I advise 
you, if you ever go there, to go in the daytime. We 
ran along for some time in water of eleven feet — we 
drew eight and a half— with the feeling that any un- 
evenness in the surface of the bottom would bring us 
up all standing. Once we just scraped. We could 
feel the grinding of the keel, but the yacht had head- 
way enough to carry us over the bar into deeper wa- 
ter. We came to anchor at ten o'clock under Smith 
Island. 

The next day was absolutely perfect. The sun was 
warm and unclouded, and the water of the harbor was 
as smooth as glass. Several school of mackerel were flip- 
ping, one not ten rods off. We quickly got bait ready, 
with which to tole them alongside, and in a few min- 
utes hundreds and even thousands were playing about 
the vessel. Our jigs were out, and such sport as we 
had in the next thirty minutes it is not easy to de- 
scribe. The beauty of mackerel fishing is that you 
neither have to bait your hook nor take your fish off. 
Brighten your jig by scraping it with a knife, and you 
have done enough to attract the greedy eyes of this 
fine fish. Throw your bait over, and then your jig 
into the midst of it, and before you know it a fish has 
the hook in his mouth. Haul in with a rapid but a 
gentle and loving hand, for the fellow's jaws are very 
tender, and when on board give your line a sudden 
twitch, and the fish falls off and leaves you ready for 



126 Starboard and Port, 

the next trial. So the fun continues as long as the 
school remains ; but this is mere matter of chance, for 
mackerel are shy fish withal, and any sudden shout, 
or noise of any kind, and you hear that peculiar swash 
which informs you that they have all taken the alarm 
and are off. We caught something like a hundred and 
twenty-five in the thirty minutes in which our visitors 
lingered near us, and at the end of the thirty-first min- 
ute the water, which had been alive with them, was as 
quiet as though there were not a mackerel within a 
thousand miles. 

While Ruloff was ashore looking up a team to carry 
us to the Margaree, which we afterward learned was 
forty-four mjles distant, I went down to my books to 
look up any information that was to be had on the 
subject of Cape Breton. 

" An Impartial Frenchman," as he calls himself, pub- 
lished in 1760, about the time the American colonies 
were beginning to effervesce under the subtle influence 
of that yeast of progress called Liberty, a history of 
the island, which is a very good book of reference, but 
a terribly dry volume to read on a summer's day. He 
talks somewhat statistically about what he calls the 
" Gulph of St. Laurence," which phrase makes one feel 
that the river is the throat and the lakes the several 
stomachs of a watery giant, who takes pleasure in that 
enormous mouth with which at one gulp he disposes 
of the craft that confidingly trust to his protection. 
This writer may have been exceedingly impartial for 
a Frenchman, but his statements are not true when 
looked at from the Anglo-Saxon angle of vision. The 
island, he tells us, is *' covered with lakes, rivulets, and 



A Sand -bank and a Fight 127 

bogs." To the contrary, we found it, after our long 
ride, one of the most picturesque of places. In the 
extreme north there are a few settlements only, and 
the original woods hold sway, divided by deep rivers, 
which are well stocked with salmon and various kinds 
of trout. 

Cape Breton is a triangular piece of land, so situated 
that it becomes the natural key to the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence. St. Lawrence Bay is the apex in the north ; 
Madame Island forms the southwest corner, and Scatari 
Island the southeast corner. Its greatest length is 
about one hundred miles from north to south, and 
its greatest breadth about eighty miles, which gives an 
area, exclusive of the surface of the lakes, of some- 
thing like two million acres for the woodsman's axe 
and the plow and spade of the farmer. 

The coast on the south and east is serrated, afford- 
ing innumerable harbors to the captain who knows the 
way in, and an equal number of chances for shipwreck 
for the vessel that must find a lee whether or no. The 
shore is very bold in many places, huge cliffs of solid 
rock jutting far out into the sea, with reefs and solitary 
rocks, over which the water breaks continually. The 
island is said to be very rich in coal ; and I learn it from 
good authority that, between Miray Bay and the en- 
trance to the Bras d'or Inlets, there are one hundred 
and twenty square miles of land containing veins of 
coal that can be worked with profit. Fortunes have 
already been made in this enterprise, but there are 
many more fortunes of equal bulk waiting to be picked 
up by some rash and daring companies. 

The island was discovered by Cabot, and was either 



128 Starboard and Port. 

called Breton by him, in honor of Britain, or by Verraz- 
zani, a subsequent explorer in the service of France, 
after Brittany in his native land. Its first inhabitants 
were probably Frenchmen, who used to come from 
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the first decade of 
the eighteenth century, and live in huts during the 
summer months, when they pursued the trade of 
codding ; but in winter it was given over to the ten- 
der mercies of the fur-hunters and purchasers. It was 
then a howling wilderness, with no white population 
any where except on the coast. The interior was a 
terra incognita so far as the white man was concerned, 
but was sparsely inhabited by the Mic-Macs, who 
seem to have spread themselves over Prince Ed- 
ward's, Newfoundland, and Cape Breton in profuse 
abundance. 

The French, soon after their settlement, knowing 
that both England and the colonies situate on Massa- 
chusetts Bay were looking at the island with longing 
and envious eyes, began the fortification of Louisburg, 
on the southeast coast. Not content with this, they 
instigated the Indians to make sundry attacks on the 
English settlers who had pre-empted the shore along 
the Gut of Canso, then called the Gut of Fronfac, until 
at last it became necessary to settle the question of 
rightful possession by the stern arbitrament of the 
sword. The government of Massachusetts determined 
to rout the French from Louisburg at any cost, and 
the war in which this deed of prowess was accom- 
plished is of such importance that I shall be excused 
if I give it something more than a passing notice. 

Louisburg was in 1745, or thereabouts, the strongest 



A Sand- bank and a Fight. 129 

fortification on the continent, with the exception, pos- 
sibly, of Quebec. It consisted of a rampart of stone, 
nearly forty feet high, and two miles and a half in cir- 
cumference. It had also a ditch of nearly the same 
length, and eighty feet wide. Thirty million livres 
had been expended on the structure, but, like some 
of our city buildings, and perhaps for the same reason, 
it had never been completed. 

When the attack was determined upon, the war took 
upon itself the semblance of a religious war. It was a 
crusade in favor of the cod-fishery and against the pa- 
pacy. No wonder that New England was all aglow. 
It required only two months to enlist 3200 men from 
Massachusetts, 500 from Connecticut, and 300 from 
New Hampshire, besides 300 from Rhode Island, who 
were not in the fight. It was a volunteer army, made 
up of farmers and mechanics ; but they were drilled 
by common interest and danger, which is sometimes 
better than Hardee's Tactics. 

The flag that was used on the battle-field was pre- 
sented to the itinerant preacher George Whitefield, 
who roused New England blood to the boiling point 
of religious enthusiasm by having inscribed upon it 
the motto, "Nil desperandum Christo duce." This 
reverend gentleman entered into the spirit of the 
crusade by sermon and prayer, and scattered his peace 
principles to the wind until Louisburg fell, when he 
gathered the pieces together again, and went on his 
way rejoicing. 

It was necessary to have a leader for an expedition 
of this kind, and William Pepperell, of Kittery, Maine, 
was chosen. He was a merchant, extensively con- 

F2 



1 30 Starboard and Port. 

cerned in trade, and so popular that for thirty-two 
successive years he was elected one of His Majesty's - 
council for the province of Massachusetts. He had 
little or no military education, except that which had 
been thrust upon him by constant conflicts with neigh- 
boring Indians. 

On the 4th of April the troops embarked for Canso, 
where they arrived in safety, after having suffered from 
the fogs and storms of the Nova Scotia coast. On the 
13th of April the fleet, augmented by the command 
of Commodore Warren, who had arrived from his sta- 
tion in the West Indies, sailed into Chaparouge Bay, 
and landed its men, who at once drove the surprised 
Frenchmen within their lines of fortification. 

By the 7th of May the town was fairly invested, 
and a summons was sent to Duchambon to surrender. 
It was a pretty tough fight from that time until the 
1 6th of June. The fortunes of the armies were various. 
Unheard-of exploits were accomplished by the New- 
Englanders, while the French exhibited both tact and 
courage. Five several charges w^ere made on the for- 
tifications, none of which were successful, though in 
the last one the colonists lost 189 men. After that, 
however. Commodore Warren engaged, and after a 
fearful struggle captured, the Vigilant, a seventy-four, 
and 560 soldiers, which spread such consternation 
among the Frenchmen that they were completely de- 
moralized, and, just as the colonial troops were gath- 
ering their strength to make a decisive onslaught, 
Duchambon thought the matter over and concluded 
to surrender. 

The flag of Whitefield had done its work, and was 



A Sand -bank and a Fight, 131 

planted victoriously on the ramparts. The civilians 
had shown themselves worthy to meet well -trained 
soldiers, and to wrest the day from their grasp. 4130 
prisoners were taken, of which number 650 were vet- 
erans, and 1 3 10 belonged to the militia. As Mr. Mar- 
tin says in his little history of Nova Scotia and Cape 
Breton, " Not the least singular event connected with 
this gallant circumstance was the fact that the plan 
for the reduction of this regularly constructed fortress 
was drawn up by a lawyer, and executed by a body of 
colonial husbandmen and merchants." 

The siege of Louisburg lasted forty-nine days, and it 
must be confessed that the result would have been 
very different but for several favoring circumstances. 
In the first place, the weather was not only unusually 
but remarkably fine. If it had rained, the little army 
of besiegers, who spent a great part of their time work- 
ing like oxen to drag the heavy guns across the bogs 
intervening between the shore and the fortifications, 
would undoubtedly have suffered greatly. Not only 
would their work have been impeded and indefinitely 
delayed, but sickness would have inevitably thinned 
their ranks. In the second place, the troops inside the 
fortress were in very ill-humor, even to the verge of in- 
subordination. If they had been a unit, they could 
have made successful sorties from their stronghold, and 
put to rout or thrown into confusion the besiegers. 
In the third place, by a very curious coincidence, nearly 
every British man-of-war stationed along the coast 
found its way into the harbor. 

The following ships of the line and frigates arrived 
during the siege, and helped, of course, to completely 



132 Starboard and Port 

demoralize the enemy : The Stiperbe, 60 guns ; the Lan- 
caster ^ 40 ; the Mermaid, 40 ; the prize Vigilant, 64 ; the 
Princess Mary, 60; the Hector, 40; the Chester, 50; the 
Canterbury, 60; the Sunderland, 60 ; the Lark, 40. 

There were, then, more than five hundred guns bear- 
ing on the noble fortification, and it is little wonder 
that Duchambon's heart grew depressed to the point 
of surrender as he saw this formidable fleet come in 
one after another, and anchor within short range. 

After the memorable capture, General Pepperell gave 
a dinner to which Commodore Warren and the officers 
of the navy were especially invited. It so happened 
that the Rev. Samuel Moody, chaplain of the General's 
regiment, was present, and must needs be asked to 
pray for a blessing. This gentleman had such a won- 
derful gift for long prayers, with which he was accus- 
tomed to wear out the patience of the most long-suf- 
fering, that the officers were in a quandary for fear the 
soups and meats would all be cold before he could be 
induced to say Amen. He v/as one of those clergy- 
men who leave their amen at home, and so continue 
indefinitely. It would never do to speak to him on 
the subject, for he is reported as being as irritable and 
crusty as he was prolix. The diners -out, however, 
were surprised and delighted when the chaplain, who 
was at a loss for the first time in his life, rose in his 
place and delivered the following model prayer : " Good 
Lord, we have so many things to thank thee for that 
time will be infinitely too short to do it ; we must, 
therefore, leave it for eternity. Bless our food and fel- 
lowship on this joyful occasion, for the sake of Christ 
our Lord. Amen." 



A Sand'bajik and a Fight, 133 

Several important consequences followed this re- 
markable victory. It gave to England the key to the 
whole Gulf of St. Lawrence ; it broke up what was fast 
becoming a very important French naval station, for 
in the November preceding the capture a magnificent 
French fleet, consisting of three huge men-of-war, six 
East Indiamen, nine brigantines, thirty-one other ships, 
and two schooners, found there a safe anchorage, and 
sailed thence for purposes of trade or war ; and, beyond 
all this, it effectually destroyed the hold of France on 
the Western continent, thus, perhaps, altering the his- 
tory of all coming time. 

General Pepperell and Commodore Warren were made 
Baronets of Great Britain, the troops went home, and 
another bloojdy page was inserted between the covers 
of that book which records the progress of mankind 
toward a general peace, which is apparently to be 
reached only after sprinkling the soil of the planet 
with the gore of patriots. 

Cape Breton is so far north that its winters are te- 
diously long, while its summers are a mere flash in the 
pan. Whatever grows must take time by the forelock, 
or the first frost will nip it in the bud. Ambitious 
crops which expect to be garnered must get under full 
headway by the middle of June, and take advantage of 
every warm day in July and August, for with the first 
of September the nights begin to grow chilly, and after 
that the ground becomes stubborn, and refuses to give 
any more nourishment. Few flowers, except those of 
the hardier sort, shed their fragrance on the air, and 
fruits of nearly all kinds positively refuse to ripen. 

There is still game in the woods, if one has sufficient 



134 Starboard and Port, 

toughness of cuticle to defy the armies of insects. 
These are, however, so formidable that few venture 
far from the coast until snow falls, and their prowess 
is so great that their depredations are recited in 
heroic verse. We heard of some sailors who, being 
determined on fresh meat, made a journey of a few 
miles into the back country after caribou. They were 
so beset by an immense cloud of mosquitoes that they 
were forced to beat an orderly retreat. Not content 
with driving the invaders out of their dominions, the 
enemy, by a masterly flank movement, hemmed them 
in on deck, and presented their little bills with such 
effect that the sailors were fairly driven below, and 
compelled to batten down the hatches. The mos- 
quitoes were plucky to the last, for they drove their 
bills through the hatches, and the sailors, with axes 
and hammers, clinched them on the inner side — so 
the story runs — thus proving over again the old truism 
that brains are superior to brute force. 

Very few bears are to be seen, but caribou are plenty 
in the season. They are best captured when the snow 
is a couple of feet deep in the woods. The hunters 
then kill them by the score. With snow - shoes they 
can easily tire out the game, which sinks at every 
spring to its shoulder. Our " Impartial Frenchman " 
must have had some sport of this kind in the olden 
days, for he tells us that " the flesh of this beast is eat- 
able ; and, indeed, it makes as good soop as beef." He 
describes another animal, however, which no hunter 
likes to meet, and his imagination or his fear must 
have supplied him with facts, for the wild-cat, when 
full-grown and ferocious, is apt to make one's heart 



. A Sand -bank and a Fight 135 

palpitate in the most distressing way. I have killed 
almost every thing in the way of game, and have no 
more of the ingredient of fear in my composition than 
the average hunter, but whenever I have seen a wild- 
cat, especially if he has arrived at maturity, and I have 
reason to think his claws full-grown, I have let him 
alone. He is a creature whose intimacy I studiously 
avoid. I confess I am afraid of him, and this fear 
springs from an experience I had once, when I was 
under twenty. I was out after bears, and had suc- 
ceeded in sending my leaden compliments in the shape 
of a ball weighing a good ounce into his fore-shoulder, 
bringing him down, and giving me a good right to his 
pelt, when I heard a rustle in a tree about fifty feet 
off. I looked up and saw those two yellow sparkles 
which make one feel that he is in the presence of the 
evil one himself. A huge wild-cat was cozily tucked 
up on one of the higher hmbs watching the scene be- 
low, and had just made up his mind to have a tilt with 
me. At that moment I thanked God for breech-load- 
ers, and I feel reasonably certain that but for that fact 
the people would have been spared a great many poor 
sermons. Quicker than I can describe it I took two 
cartridges from my pouch, and thrusting one into the 
gun, held the other in my left hand for an emer- 
gency. If ever I took a careful as well as a rapid aim, 
it was at that moment. The beast was on his haunch- 
es ; he showed his teeth, and began to move his fore- 
feet nervously, pattering them down on the limb, as is 
the habit of the brute before he springs. A sharp re- 
port, and then, hardly looking at the result, I reloaded. 
It was very fortunate that I did so, for the cat had been 



136 Starboard and Port 

hit in the abdomen only, and, just as I was ready for 
him, he made a jump for me, landing within five feet of 
the place where I stood. I have never said so before, 
but I am now ready to confess that every individual 
hair of my head stood on end, and I wished most 
heartily that I hadn't concluded to hunt that morning. 
Whether it was that my first bullet began to produce 
its effect, or Avhether the fall was greater than he ex- 
pected, I know not, but the cat was perhaps ten or 
fifteen seconds gathering himself up and getting ready 
for another spring, which would have been equivalent 
to my funeral, and that saved me. I put the second 
ball into him, and he lay still. 

Since that time I have had no ambition whatever to 
engage in a personal encounter with wild-cats. They 
shall never smell powder from my gun, if they will be 
kind enough to keep on their own side of the fence. 

My impression is that our '■' Impartial Frenchman " 
must have had the same electrical effect produced on 
his capillaries, for he writes in the most confused way 
about the natural history of this quadruped. He says, 
" The quincajou resembles a large cat. His hair is of 
a red brown, and the tail so very long that, when he 
turns it up, it makes two or three curls on his back. 
This is his offensive weapon. With it he entwines the 
poor animal, after first seizing him with his paws ; then 
he bites him in the neck under the ear, and does not 
let go his hold until the victim is dead." If that sen- 
tence was not written by a man who had at some time 
in his life been pretty badly scared, then I can make no 
diagnosis of the diseased condition that produced it. 

Port Hood is one of the three or four good anchor- 



A Sand 'bank and a Fight. 137 

ages of the west coast of Cape Breton. It is very 
beautifully situated on a kind of bluff, and its few 
hundred inhabitants live mostly on a single street or 
road that runs parallel with and faces the water. Im- 
mediately in front of the village are the two islands, 
Smith and Henry, which serve as a breakwater for the 
harbor, which in ordinary blows is as smooth as a mill- 
pond. The people are mostly fishermen — that is, they 
depend largely for support on the products of the 
water, though they nearly all have little farms which 
they work at odd times. The women are often seen 
in the fields handHng the rake and the hoe as though 
they were accustomed to those implements, and so the 
grounds are kept in good order while the liege lords 
hold an intermittent correspondence with Neptune by 
occasionally " dropping a line." They are a snugly 
housed, and, on the whole, thrifty people, with a very 
large proportion of Scotch blood in their veins, and are 
mostly Catholics. We enjoyed immensely the picture 
of the village as seen from the yacht, and had more 
than one occasion to note the genial hospitality, the 
general good-humor, the unaffected modesty, and re- 
freshing simplicity and honesty of the inhabitants. 



138 Starboard and Port, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SCENERY AND FLY -MAKING. 

" A brother of the angle must always be sped 
With three black palmers, and also three red ; 
And all made with hackles." 

Barker. 

"Enwrapt I gaze with strange delight, 
While consciousnesses, not to be disowned, 
Here only serve a feeling to invite 
That lifts the spirit to a calmer height. 
And makes this rural stillness more profound." 

Wordsworth. 

^^ 

£1:'^^^%. ULOFF succeeded in getting a couple 
of wagons, the owner of which agreed 
to land us on the banks of the swift- 
flowing Margaree before dark. How it 
was to be done, I could not conjecture ; 
but at that time I was not acquainted with the Cape 
Breton horse or the Cape Breton driver. In the two- 
horse team we put most of our innumerable traps, 
such as blankets, tents, rods, guns, and the et cetera of 
a fisherman's outfit. These were safely and snugly 
bestowed under the seats, while on them were the en- 
tire company, except Fletcher and myself, who took 
the dog with us in a single team drawn by a very 
sorry-looking horse. 




Scenery and Fly -making, ■ 139 

" Come, gentlemen, it is time to be off," cried the 
driver. "Are you ready?" 

" Ready !" was the response from both wagons. 

" Then git up !" and crack went the whip, and away 
sped the horses, so suddenly that our heads were driven 
back from our shoulders to an angle of forty-five de- 
grees, and we involuntarily cried, " Ugh !" in the most 
approved Indian fashion, and held on to the seats with 
both hands. 

Down the street we rushed, raising clouds of dust, 
and then beyond the confines of the village, when we 
laid our course for Mabou, seven miles distant. It was 
a very uneven road, in that it went up hill and down, 
but very smooth, in that it was well made and had no 
ruts. The views we had of the island landscapes every 
now and then made me wish that all my friends and a 
few of my enemies were there to enjoy them ; for no 
man can hold enmity in his heart when he is gazing 
upon such ravishing scenes. At one time we drove for 
miles through the silent forest, the only sound to be 
heard being the shrill voice of the little chipmunk, or 
the dull thud of the woodpecker's bill on the bark of 
a tree. The only game we saw was a covey or two of 
partridges — a most remarkable bird for one or two pe- 
culiarities — and a score or so of rabbits. I dislike to 
fire at a rabbit, for, unless you kill him outright, he 
makes you feel as though you were committing a mur- 
der. If you happen to simply wound him, he utters a 
cry not unlike that of a sick infant, and as you rap 
him on the head to end his misery, you seem to your- 
self a kind of ogre who is gathering children for an 
evening meal. The partridge, on the other hand, is so 



140 Starboard and Port 

thoroughly stupid, especially in places where he is not 
often shot at, that you draw a bead on him without 
the slightest remorse. We ran across half a dozen 
pecking away on the side of the road, and fired at the 
farthest one first. If we had fired at the first one, 
some of the shot would have passed over him and 
frightened the others. They do not care for noise, and 
are not at all disturbed unless they are personally in- 
terfered with ; so we successively shot the first, then 
the next, then the next, and so on, until we got to the 
last fellow, who, coming to the conclusion that some- 
thing was wrong, put for the underbrush, where it was 
impossible to follow. I have again and again shot 
three partridges off the same tree, doing it in the most 
deliberate manner. If you kill the one on the top- 
most branch, he will in dropping frighten the others ; 
but if you shoot the one nearest the ground first, you 
may reload at your leisure and bag the others. 

At another time we drove along a high ridge, with a 
long stretch of land lying at our feet on the right, dot- 
ted here and there with a farm-house, while the broad, 
smooth, deep-blue waters of the gulf stretched to the 
horizon on the left. It was a scene for a painter, and 
I can not tell you how sorry I felt that I had neglect- 
ed to bring with me a photographic apparatus with 
which to reproduce the panorama for home use and 
pleasure. It is so easy to learn enough of the mystic 
art of photography to obtain reminders of one's jour- 
neyings, that the camera has become one of the indis- 
pensables of a traveler's luggage. 

Mabou is a lovely creek, making inland from the 
coast for several miles, and into which the Mabou 



Scenery and Fly -making. 141 

River pours its treasures. There were no trout there, 
however, since the thrifty inhabitants had erected just 
above its mouth a huge saw-mill, whose dust filled the 
water and choked the fish. And, by the way, these 
saw-mills are to be found on a vast number of streams, 
rendering them almost entirely useless for fishing pur- 
poses. The troublesome and often fatal saw-dust gets 
into the gills of the trout, and after a time depopu- 
lates the river. We saw in the Mabou many a shady 
nook overhung by branches — a capital home for the 
trout — and were almost inclined to joint our rods and 
fix our reels and flies ; but on the bottom lay a couple 
of inches of sawdust, and we were informed that no 
fish were there. 

At the head of the creek, just over the bridge, on the 
side of a couple of steep hills, the higher piled on top 
of the lower, sits the little village of Mabou. It has 
forty or fifty houses, a post-office, a blacksmith-shop, a 
notion store, where calico and molasses are sold indis- 
criminately, but no church. It is a rather neat, but an 
awfully slow place. There seems to be plenty of oxy- 
gen in the air, but the people are nevertheless sluggish 
and careless to the last degree. They gathered about 
our wagons while we went into the store for cheese, 
crackers, and poor cigars, but were not lively enough 
to ask questions. A Yankee would have known the 
biography of each separate individual of the party in 
five minutes ; but strangers we entered the village, and 
strangers we left it. 

By this time the dog — fearful reminiscence — began 
to set up sundry bowlings, which rendered our trip un- 
pleasant, and made even life itself seem less desirable. 



142 Starboard and Port, 

He would thrust his head over the dash-board, and 
bark at those in the head wagon, until it seemed to me 
that a fatal bronchitis must make short work with him. 
But his throat was of leather, and his lungs of brass. 
He barked, howled, moaned incessantly, what for I did 
not know, nor have I yet found out. I whipped him 
and coaxed him by turns, but to no purpose. It seem- 
ed as though his interior were a cave of the winds, and 
that his mouth was a trumpet through which they un- 
ceasingly surged. At last, tired out, we let him go, and 
he bolted for the next thirty miles up hill and down, 
until the pads on his fore-feet were worn through ; still, 
when he dropped on the side of the road from sheer 
exhaustion, and we lifted him into the wagon again, he 
renewed the same unnatural bowlings, which made us 
feel, as a young mother does when her baby cries, that 
there must be a pin sticking into it somewhere which 
she can not find. 

Beyond Mabou through the same delightful scenery 
we passed, with here a view of the land, and there a 
refreshing sight of the sea, until we reached Broad 
Cove, another little village at the cross-roads, and so 
on until night fell, and found us still six miles from 
the Margaree. By this time the horses were tired, and 
slackened their speed. The driver, however, cheered 
them on with the potent encouragement of his whip- 
lash, until from the head wagon came the welcome 
words — 

" Here we are, and there is the river !" 

The first part of the statement we readily agreed to, 
but as to the river, nothing could be seen but a hazy 
fog, of serpentine shape, that stretched itself along the 
valley. 



Scenery and Fly -making. 143 

" Under that fog the river, and in that river the sal- 
mon!" cried Bertric. 

We were too tired to respond to the sentiment with 
eclat ; for we had been sitting in one position, and that 
a cramped and uncomfortable one, for seven hours, had 
had nothing to eat but hard bread, and cheese which 
would have passed for shoe-leather if it had been tan- 
ned, and felt in no mood to be hilarious. 

It was too late to set up our tents, so we tried for 
a lodging at a small house not far off. 

" Could you take us in for the night ?" inquired Ru- 
loff, with an imploring look that would have given him 
a verdict before any jury. 

The owner of the house, which was a single-story 
affair, looked at us, seven in number, and said slowly, 
but with ominous decisiveness, 

'' Couldn't think of it." 

5< But, my friend, what can we do ?" said Algar. 

" Don't know," replied the proprietor of the estate. 

" Why can't you take us in ?" meekly asked Stigand. 

" 'Cause house full now ; wife sick ; not a bed in 
house ; only floor to sleep on, and can't have you there. 
So now." 

That ended the matter as effectually as though the 
Fates had spoken. 

*' I'll find you a place," said Nimrod, cheeringly. 
" Follow me." 

So we trudged behind him for three quarters of a 
mile, and at last, at about ten o'clock, saw quite a mod- 
ern-looking house on the hill-top. A knock at the 
door, and a gruff voice asked, 

"Wha'ye want?" 



144 Starboard and Port, 

" Want to get in," said three of us at once, by a kind 
of instinct, and as though to give emphasis to the re- 
quest. 

" Weel, wait a bit, and I'll undo the door." 

The door was unbarred, and a hale, hearty old 
Scotchman presented himself, and bade us welcome to 
his homestead. He even roused the family from their 
slumbers, and got us a supper of bread and milk. 

When the time came to retire — and that time was 
immediately after supper — our host entered the room 
where we were sitting, and said, 

*' I hae ony won bed." 

"Well, no matter; we'll sleep on the floor," we said ; 
and with that we spread out our shawls and the wolf- 
skin. 

" I understand there is a clergymon among ye," he 
continued. 

" Humph !" I said, " is that so ? Well, he is no bet- 
ter than the rest of us, and must take his chances." 

" Not so ; an' I will not hear ye say it, young mon," 
responded our host. "The clergymon must hae the 
bed." 

I remonstrated, but to no purpose. The bed I must 
have, and the bed I did have. There was a short, 
sharp controversy over the matter, which ended, as 
usual, in an unconditional surrender on my part. 

" Call me early, mother, dear," were our last words 
uttered ; " call me early, for we want a salmon for 
breakfast," and then we fell asleep. 

Oh ! the delights of a dreamless sleep after a weary 
day. It is more than tired nature's sweet restorer — it is 
the shadowy and silent vale through which one passes 



Scenery and Fly -making, 145 

to a re-creation of body and mind. What a delicious 
sense of relief creeps over you as you throw yourself 
full length on the couch, and relax every muscle, giv- 
ing yourself up to that misty, hazy something which 
covers the world, and makes it grow dimmer and dim- 
mer to the sight, until it is lost to view entirely. 

I had not slept five minutes, apparently, before I 
heard the hoarse voice of Nimrod in my ear: 

'' Four o'clock, sir, and a fine morning." 

I shook myself to get hold of my whereabouts, and 
then, remembering the salmon river, dressed as quickly 
as possible. It was July, but there was thick frost on 
the window-panes, while the grass looked as though it 
had been snowing in the night. 

Let me walk slowly through my narrative now, for 
there is an exquisite pleasure connected with every de- 
tail of salmon-fishing. It is unHke any thing else in 
the world ; and he who has never played with a fifteen- 
pounder of this species, knowing that he holds his prey 
only by the uncertain tenure of a single piece of silk- 
worm gut, has yet to enjoy one of the most fascinating 
and exciting experiences of life. 

First, my rod. It has three joints, and is seventeen 
feet six inches and a half long — of course, a double- 
handed rod. In all the seventeen feet and six inches 
there is no one spot where it yields any more than it 
does at any other spot. From tip to butt it springs 
evenly. The first joint is of greenheart, whose fibres 
lie side by side in the snuggest and most friendly fash- 
ion ; the second is of lance-wood, and the third of split 
bamboo. I always carry a spare tip, but have never 
had occasion to use it. 

G 



146 Starboard and Port 

Secondly, my reel. This is a large-sized click reel, 
with rubber sides. The metal sides make the reel 
bungling and heavy. The click is not very strong, so 
the line passes over it with perfect freedom. Some 
fishermen prefer the multiplying reel, but I have always 
found it a nuisance, and very treacherous. It will do 
very well for trout, but is worse than useless for salm- 
on. When the fish runs, he is apt to overhaul the 
line, at which critical moment the whole thing is in a 
snarl, from which you can extricate it, to be sure, if 
the fish will wait for you to do so ; but, unfortunately, 
salmon, tides, and time never wait for any man. In that 
single moment of distress the fish is sure to make a 
plunge, and carry away with him ten or a dozen fath- 
oms of your line. The simpler your gear when you 
are playing this prince of all the finny tribe the better. 
Your chances of bringing the fish to gaff depend upon 
the exquisite harmony between rod, line, reel, and fish- 
erman. 

Thirdly, my line. This consists of about one hun- 
dred yards of oiled silk. The best lines are like a 
whip-lash, bulky in the middle and tapering toward 
each end. This gives you weight enough to enable 
you to throw your fly into a pool three feet in width 
and fifty yards away, and let it touch the water as gently 
as though a moth had just dropped on its surface. 

Fourthly, my casting-line. This is about eight feet 
long, and of picked gut. The first three feet, those 
nearest the silk line, may be of three strands, very 
carefully twisted ; the next three feet ought to be of 
two strands, while the last two feet should be of stout 
single gut. 



Scenery and Fly -making, 147 

Lastly, my flies. Let me here give you one warn- 
ing : never make your own flies. It is cheaper and 
better to buy them — if you want to catch fish. Every 
fisherman ought to know enough to mend a fly when 
it gets torn, for it sometimes happens that a given 
combination of colors, for some unknown reason, will 
be very killing, while another fly, to all appearance very 
like it, will fail to attract a fish ; but it is not profitable 
on the whole to manufacture flies yourself. Every one 
to his business, and let the fly-maker have a fair chance, 
is my motto. 

I have never yet been able to tell why a salmon, 
who is a kind of chivalrous gentleman, a man of brains 
among fish, should be deceived and taken by a wretch- 
ed counterfeit upon, indeed a burlesque of nature, called 
a fly. The things which are made in shops look no 
more like the real winged insects upon which the fish 
feeds than a rainbow looks like a dull gray cloud. It 
is pretty evident to my mind that the success of an 
artificial fly does not depend in any degree upon its 
having the general contour of a bug or natural fly, but 
upon a certain attractive combination of colors. I have 
caught trout, certainly, and they are younger members 
of the salmon family, with a fly which any living thing 
would blush to look like. The shape seems to have 
nothing to do with its killing quality, and the colors 
used may not be likened unto any thing in heaven 
above or the earth beneath. If you can catch the 
fish's eye, you catch the fish. I have tried the vari- 
ous, and in some cases commendable imitations of the 
house-fly and the gadfly and the moth of which the 
market is full, but I never had any success with them. 



148 Starboard and Port, 

A common brown hackle is worth all the gutta-percha 
flies that were ever made. Again, in July and August, 
when the black or white moth is abundant, I have 
known a trout to persistently refuse the same colors on 
my hook, though I dropped the fly over his head as 
noiselessly as a shadow, yet a few minutes after he has 
risen, with a rush that took him clean out of water, at 
a little fiery-brown feather, the like of which he never 
saw before. 

A young fly-fisherman is almost always under the 
delusion that he must needs purchase an enormous as- 
sortment of flies, of all sizes and colors, and fills his 
book with a lot of expensive material which afterward 
proves to be absolutely useless. Some over-scientific 
sportsmen have laid down the rule that a different fly 
is necessary for every season of the year; but good 
Isaak Walton has disposed of this nonsense in the fol- 
lowing paragraph, to which every practical fisherman 
will give his assent : 

" That whereas it is said by many that in fly-fishing 
for a trout, the angler must observe his twelve several 
flies for the twelve months of the year ; I say, he that 
follows that rule, shall be as sure to catch fish, and be 
as wise, as he that makes hay by the fair days in an 
Almanac, and no surer." 

This is far better advice than the following, which is 
as poor in sense as in poetical mint : 

"A brown-red fly at morning gray, 
A darker dun in clearer day; 
When summer rains have swelled the flood, 
The hackle red and worm are good. 
At eve, when twilight shades prevail, 
Try the hackle white and snail." 



Scenery and Fly -making, ^ 149 

But here follow two lines, the admonition in which 
it is necessary to observe : 

" Be mindful aye your fly to throw, 
Light as falls the flaky snow." 

And yet, important as this warning is, I do not think 
it necessary, in American waters at least, to throw with 
the accuracy which is demanded by another sportsman 
in these words : " No one is fairly entitled to be called 
an artist who can not readily throw his fly into a pint- 
pot at eighteen yards." In order to be an accom- 
plished fisherman, one need not be such a gifted artist 
as this, though he ought to be able to cast his trout-fly 
a distance of twenty yards even with tolerable accu- 
racy, and to throw his salmon-fly well across a stream 
that is twenty-five or thirty yards wide in a calm day. 
If he can accomplish either of these exploits, he is 
ready for the work. 

There is one method of throwing the fly to which 
we have not given sufficient attention, however, and 
the value of which we have not properly estimated. 
Nearly all our streams are lined with underbrush, and 
nothing is more fretful than to get your hook and cast- 
ing-line entangled in sundry branches just over the 
fish's head. You may pull, but to no purpose, for the 
point of the hook is fast in the wood ; you may utter 
expletives which make the leaves turn yellow as in au- 
tumn, but these have no effect on the snarl. There 
are only two things to be done — you may wade across 
the stream, and thus frighten the fish from his covert, 
or you may part your line. In either case you have 
suffered a misfortune, and lost your temper. 



150 Starboard and Port 

What is called the underthrow obviates all this. If 
you are skilled in it, you can throw twenty yards right 
under the branches of overhanging trees, and not touch 
a trap. Pritchard, who is an adept in this science, 
taught me, and it has saved me many a moment of su- 
preme embarrassment. You cast your fly ahead of 
you, say five or eight yards, letting it r^st on the water, 
then reeling off five or six yards more of slack line, by 
a quick motion from left to right or from right to left, 
you throw the slack ahead with force enough to draw 
the fly after it, and it lands at the required spot with a 
gentle snap like that of a whip-lash. 

As for the time when to fish, there is but one rule, 
and that is to fish whenever you feel like it. There 
are so many whims about cloudy days and sunny days 
and windy days, that if you attended to all the warn- 
ings that have been given you would never bring a 
fish to net. 

One old saw runs thus : 

" When the wind is south, 
It blows your bait into the fish's mouth ;" 

but Solomon, who himself indulged in the innocent 
sport of angling, says of another pursuit, " He that 
considers the wind shall never sow," intimating pretty 
plainly that if you want to sow, and have any seed to 
sow withal, you may sow it and be done with it, whether 
the wind blows or not. The same is true of angling. 
Fish are certainly capricious, but there is no rule by 
which they are whimsical, and the only sensible thing 
to do is to go a-fishing whenever you wish to, and take 
the luck that comes in a philosophical spirit. 



Scenery and Fly -making. 151 

Now that I have quoted Scripture, I ought to be 
allowed to say that the pleasures of angling were not 
entirely unknown to the sages and prophets. Solomon 
says that ''his beloved had eyes like the fish-pools of 
Heshbon," which shows plainly enough that he had 
visited those pools. It is less than probable that he 
visited them simply to note their natural beauty, or to 
watch the finny tribe at their play, and much more 
than probable that he was accustomed to drop a line 
and try his luck. 

It is evident that in the earliest times the various 
means of catching fish which are in use to-day were 
known. Job asks, '' Canst thou fill his skin with barbed 
irons? or his head with fish -spears?" Those same 
barbed irons and fish-spears are to be found on every 
fisherman that sails out of Gloucester Harbor, and they 
are used for the same purpose and in the same way as 
in the olden time, and, if I mistake not, I have lately 
seen harpoons, with which fin-backs and sword-fish are 
taken, old-fashioned enough to have been the property 
of some sturdy Hebrew of three thousand years ago. 

Isaiah says, " The fishers shall mourn, and all they 
that cast angle upon the brooks shall lament, and they 
that spread nets upon the waters shall languish." Ha- 
bakkuk adds, '' They take up all of them with the 
angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them 
in their drag." 

But to go back to fly-making, for I take it that the 
science of angling needs no defense from me. Some 
of the best and greatest men who have ever lived have 
been fishermen, and those who were not would have 
been had the opportunity presented. The angler's oc- 



152 Starboard and PorL 

cupation induces introspection, reverie, and reflection. 
He gets en rapport with nature, and becomes refreshed 
in his inner being. The true angler is always an hon- 
est, courteous, mild-mannered gentleman. He sits on 
the banks of the stream so quietly, and so delightfully 
absorbed in contemplation, that the friendly spider 
mistakes his broad shoulders for a brown rock, and 
stretches his web from it to the nearest tree. It is 
certainly a life of innocent pleasure without an atom 
of alloy. 

Still, never make your own flies. I have had a deal 
of experience in that direction, which has taught me to 
pay Pritchard four dollars a dozen rather than make 
them at a cost of fifty cents. Some time ago I was an 
enthusiast about home-made flies, but my enthusiasm 
has oozed away, and I have no wish to recall it. 

I literally followed the advice of Gay : 

"To frame the little animal, provide 
All the gay hues that wait on female pride ; 
Let nature guide thee. Sometimes, golden wire 
The shining bellies of the fly require ; 
The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail, 
Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail. 
Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings, 
And lends the growing insect proper wings : 
Silks of all colors must their aid impart, 
And every fur promote the fisher's art." 

With all these several materials, and many more, 
had I provided myself, and with a very hopeful heart I 
set about the task. I soon found, however, that my 
fingers were too large for the business, and that the 
cunning skill, which deftly joins part to part and leaves 
no ragged chasm between, was wanting. I must con- 



Scenery mid Fly -making, 153 

fess that my first attempt was so far distant from my 
ideal that the length of the journey to perfection in 
the art was exceedingly discouraging. The dubbing 
of hog's hair would not lie smooth ; the tinsel, whose 
glittering spirals are supposed to be especially fascinat- 
ing, would insist upon uncoiling itself just as I was 
about to fasten it ; the tail would get awry, or come 
out altogether and drop on the floor ; the head was a 
bulbous nodule of worsted which was unpleasantly sug- 
gestive of hydrocephalus ; and the wings — ah ! they 
were my despair ; they would not stay where I put 
them, and my fingers were so clumsy that the little fly 
seemed like a cambric needle in the grip of a black- 
smith's vise. However, I persevered until it was fin- 
ished, and then, holding it up timidly for the exami- 
nation and criticism of a friend who was reading at 
my side, I asked, 

'' How do you like it ?" 

" Broiled ; how do you T the hard-hearted fellow re- 
plied, without lifting his head from the book. 

" But I have finished it, and want your opinion," I 
persisted. 

" I never did like fly-time," he responded, without 
deigning to give me a look. 

Not to be put off in this way, I insisted upon an ex- 
pression of opinion by putting the fly on his book, and 
saying, 

" There, don't you think it pretty ?" 

"Yes — pretty ugly," was the only response. 

" Don't you think it well made for a first attempt ?" 
I continued. 

** Oh yes," he replied, not much interested in the 

G2 



154 Starboard and Port 

subject ; " it is fearfully and wonderfully made. What 
can I say more ?" 

" But, really now, be serious for a moment, just for 
the sake of the surprise you will enjoy, and tell me 
what you think of it ?" I continued. 

"" Well," he answered, " I think it looks as though it 
had been struck by a rainbow, and a piece of every 
color and shade had stuck to it." 

*' Don't you think a trout would take it?" I said, 
trying to get some little consolation from him. 

** Oh, he might, if he was very hungry; but I 
shouldn't want to eat that kind of a fish." 

'' Dear me !" I moaned disconsolately, " what shall 
I do with it? I don't think I can make any thing 
better." 

He replied, *' Buy your flies, and put that into a 
museum of monstrosities." 

The advice was good, and I give it to you. Learn 
to mend your flies, but never take the trouble to make 
them. I have a couple of hundred which I have manu- 
factured during the last few years, but when I go into 
the woods I always lift out the tray that contains 
them with a sigh, and then put a couple of dozen of 
Pritchard's best into my book for use. 



A Salmon and a Fox, 155 



CHAPTER IX. 

A SALMON AND A FOX. 

" A whirr ! a whirr ! the salmon's out 
Far on the rushing river. 
Hark to the music of the reel ! 

The fitful and the grating ; 
It pants along the breathless wheel, 
Now hurried, now abating." 

Stoddart. 

" The little foxes that spoil the vines." 

Solomon. 

HE best covering for the feet on a 
fishing expedition is a pair of simple 
pegged Congress boots. They sup- 
port the ankles when walking, and 
are more comfortable than any thing 
else you can wear. Bertric boasted a 
pair of patent rubber boots reaching up to the waist. 
They were not very heavy — on the contrary, they were 
wonderfully light ; but if you happen, as you are likely 
to do, to step on a sharp stone or hit against a snag 
half-way up the leg, you are compelled thereafter to 
carry about with you a gallon or two of water; and if, 
disgusted at this proceeding, you lie down on your 
back and lift your leg, under the delusion that the 
water will run out, the precious liquid, which has a 
way of doing things all its own, will pour itself down 




156 Starboard and Port 

your back and drench you. There is nothing neater, 
or on the whole more comfortable, than Congress 
shoes. To be sure, you get your feet wet, but no man 
has any right to claim the honorable distinction of 
fisherman who is afraid of wet feet. 

Now then, we are all ready at 4.15 A.M. to start. 
There is a chill in the air which reminds you of No- 
vember, and the grass is as wet as though the flood 
had just ebbed ; but these are slight drawbacks. You 
munch your cracker and cheese as you wind your way 
to the banks of the river half a mile off, and are su- 
premely happy. The birds twitter their matins, the 
sun is just climbing the hill, the farmers are all asleep, 
and you are whistling or singing. 

Here at last lies the noble Margaree at our feet. It 
is altogether a remarkable stream, and one of the few 
in which every body has a right to fish. Last month 
half a dozen English officers encamped in that hut op- 
posite, and in a week killed fifteen salmon ranging 
from ten pounds to twenty-one. Two others are there 
now ; but pray don't speak to them, except to say Good- 
morning, for they will surely tell you there are no fish 
here. Their motto is, two lines are better than four. 
How beautifully the river winds among the hills ! but 
just where we stand, and for a couple of miles, there is 
not even a bush on the bank. No fear of tangling your 
line here. The stream is about seventy-five feet wide, 
and that enables us to stand on either bank and whip 
every pool. 

" Well, Nimrod, what is the prospect ?" 

*' Good, sir; good, sir; I have caught salmon in this 
river weighing forty pound with a single gut"— (that 



A Salmon and a Fox. 157 

I suspect is not. true) — " and I hope you may have as 
good luck." 

" Are there any trout here ?" 

*' Trout ? The only fear is that they will snap at 
your fly, and not give the salmon a fair chance." 

(That, too, I suspected to be an exaggeration.) 

" Good enough ! Just put my rod together. Here, 
Stigand, give me that reel, will you, and we will see 
whether by any mischance Nimrod can tell the 
truth." 

" But there is not a pool in sight — it is all shoal 
water," said Bertric. 

" Never you mind," responded Nimrod, somewhat 
touched ; " there are pools enough within twenty rods 
of us." 

The rod is all right, the reel is firmly fixed, the cast- 
ing-line is a good one, the tail fly is white and brown, 
and there is nothing left except to find the fish. 

" Here is a trout !" cried Bertric, as he killed and 
brought to creel a speckled beauty of about a pound 
weight. 

"And here's another!" cried Stigand, as he made 
fast to a plucky fellow somewhat larger. 

" Let out your line and play him !" yelled Nimrod, 
" or you will lose him. That's a white trout just from 
salt water. Handle him tenderly." 

The warning was well-timed. The fish ran out nearly 
twenty yards of line, and then gave a leap about three 
feet from the water, which tumbled from his silver sides 
in glistening drops. He was a noble fellow, and not 
until after ten minutes of skillful and patient play was 
he landed. He weighed a pound and a half. 



158 Starboard and Port 

" This is rich sport !" cried Bertric, who jerked a little 
too quickly, and drew the fly from his second fish's 
jaws — " Ah ! he's gone. Well, my beauty, just strike 
that fly once more, and I will give you a new sensa- 
tion." 

While the gentlemen were filling their creels with 
white and speckled trout, I went on about ten rods to 
watch Fletch catch his first fish with a fly. I envied 
the boy the rich experience which he was about to en- 
joy. He had carefully practiced the throw, and was 
ready for the capture. 

'^ There's a good place, Fletch " — the salmon grounds 
were farther on. " Just drop your hackle over there, 
and see what will come of it." 

The feather had no sooner touched the water than I 
saw a swirl, then heard a splash, and the fish was gone. 
He had overleaped. It would have done your heart 
good to see Fletch's eyes. They fairly stood out from 
his head, and flashed like two camp-fires. His cheeks 
were flushed, and altogether he looked remarkably 
handsome as he stood there intensely excited, disap- 
pointed, and chagrined. 

" No matter, try once more," I said. But the wary 
fish wouldn't bite. He had seen the line, and quietly 
retired. 

" Hold a minute, and we'll fix him," said Nimrod. 
" Let him rest for a while, and I will change your 
fly." 

The book was forthcoming, and a fly with red body 
and tinsel and dark wings was tied on. 

"There, throw carefully; let nothing but the fly 
touch the water, and you'll get him." 



A Salmon and a Fox, 159 

Sure enough. The feathered deceit had no sooner 
touched the surface than there came another rush, and 
this time with better aim, for the hook was fast in the 
trout's mouth. He broke at once for deeper water 
up stream. Whiz ! went the Hne off the reel, while 
Fletch, keeping a taut hold on him, followed as fast 
as he could scamper. Once he tumbled into a hole 
and fell his length, but he soon scrambled to his feet 
again, and found to his great joy that the fish was still 
safe. 

" Look out for that log ; if he gets under it, then 
good-bye.'* 

'■^ Oh ! I can't lose him — I mustn't lose him — I won't 
lose him," Fletch jerked out as he hurried on. With 
a slight strain on the line, the trout was guided into 
safe water, and after a while brought to land. He 
fought well and long, and was a prize worth having. 

As I wandered off with Nimrod to the salmon 
grounds, I could not help regretting that the boy in 
all his life might not have just such another experi- 
ence, and I envy any man the delicious excitement 
of catching his first heavy trout. 

After we had followed the bank for a while I said 
to Nimrod, 

** Look over there, man. Isn't that a princely palace 
for a fish to live in ?" It was a pool about seven feet 
deep, and nearly twelve feet across. " Now, if there 
are any salmon in this river, one of them is sure to be 
in that spot." 

I threw my line with all the skill I possessed, but 
there was no rise. This was a terrible disappoint- 
ment, and a greater damper than I cared to confess, 



i6o Starboard and Port, 

because, if a salmon takes at all, he generally takes at 
once. I threw again, and this time hauled out a little 
speckled trout weighing about six ounces. 

" Throw him back, and let him grow," I said to Nim- 
rod, as he unhooked him. 

" No need of a gaff for him," he replied, as he threw 
him fifty feet up stream. 

That was a specimen of my luck for the next hour. 
I whipped pool after pool, in each of which a salmon 
would have delighted to dwell, but with no success. 
A few insignificant trout were the only reward of my 
pains and labors — for it is no small task to wield a 
long salmon rod for that length of time ; it is far more 
tiresome than one suspects who is not accustomed to 
the work. I lay down on some logs to rest for a bit, 
while Nimrod went ahead to prospect. I had been 
lying there perhaps ten minutes when I heard him 
crying out, 

" Come here ! come here !" 

I was on my feet in an instant, and in a few seconds 
more was at his side. 

" Well, what is it ?" 

*' I saw over there, near the bank, the swirl of a big 
fellow." 

" Nimrod, you are fibbing, as usual," I said. " You 
always see swirls when I am not round, and you catch 
your biggest fish when you talk about them. I don't 
believe a salmon has flipped his tail in these waters 
for thirty days. There's my rod ; let me see you 
catch this ghostly monster of your imagination." 

He took the rod, and threw the fly with a masterly 
hand. It touched the water ; and then I had a feeling 



A Salmon and a Fox, i6i 

that the stream was suddenly boiling, or that an infant 
earthquake was playing with the bottom. A splendid 
fellow, weighing fully ten or twelve pounds, threw him- 
self half out of water, and unfortunately fell on the fly. 
No man could catch him under these circumstances, 
but the hook just pricked him as Nimrod jerked the 
line in— (9, me miserum, but it was a sad sight, and a 
great calamity. 

Nimrod stood looking at me with a sadness in his 
face which well becomes a fisherman under such trying 
circumstances, and for a while uttered no word. It was 
worse than useless to try again. That fish had learned 
too much, and would keep very still and be very wary 
for the rest of the day. 

"Did you ever?" slowly muttered Nimrod, with a 
long, mournful interval between the words. 

" No, I never," I replied, in a tone equally dolorous ; 
and that is the entire conversation we had on the 
subject. 

Matters were not to end thus, however. About an 
hour afterward I saw on a pool just ahead of me some 
wrinkles which made my cheeks turn red and my heart 
bound with hope. I crept as cautiously as I could to 
the proper point, looked at my fly, saw that the line 
was clear, and then made a cast. I really believe that 
fly never touched water, for the hungry fish took him 
on the wing. A quick jerk, and the hook was well 
fastened in his jaws. Now for a tussle ! 

I think the fish was taken by surprise. He lay per- 
fectly still in the water long enough for me to reel in 
the slack, and feel of him, when, comprehending the 
situation, he took for his motto, " Liberty or Death," 



1 62 Starboard and Port, 

and made a bold strike for the former. He was head- 
ed up stream, and the way he traveled was a marvel. 
The line went whistling from the reel, until there were 
only ten or fifteen yards left, while I tried in vain to 
stay his progress by compelling him to keep the rod 
bent. There was no tire-out to him. I saw that I 
should lose him if I didn't run, so I ran as fast as I 
could, leaping over dead logs and jumping across holes 
until I was tired enough to drop in my tracks. Then 
the salmon took a notion to sulk. He lay at the bot- 
tom of the river long enough for me to reel in about 
seventy yards of line, and then apparently determined 
to sulk my patience all away. 

I gave him one or two steady pulls, but I might as 
well have pulled against a rock. He seemed to have 
grown to the bottom, and to have become a part of it. 

*' I say, Nimrod, throw a stone in, and mind you 
don't cut my line." 

" That will I," he replied, and thereupon the stone 
struck the water and sank. There was a slight mo- 
tion in response, but nothing more. 

*' Give him another, and a bigger one." This was 
done, but the stone went so close to the line that I 
feared for a moment I had lost my fish. He was all 
right, however, and immediately started for a trip 
down stream. I followed him as best I could, but he 
went more rapidly than my legs could carry me. By 
this time I had been fast to him just twenty minutes, 
and was so tired that I determined to run the risk and 
give him the butt. The rod bent to the task in the 
. most loving way, and the salmon began to grow palpa- 
bly tired. I managed by dint of good-luck to keep 



A Salmon and a Fox, 163 

him clear of a sharp rock in the middle of the river, 
and to guide him into a pool on the nearer side of 
the bank, and directly opposite the one where he had 
struck. He was resting for a great struggle, when I 
said to Nimrod, 

" Can't you wade in and gaff him ? I can't hold on 
much longer." 

" Just you keep steady, sir, and I'll do my best." 

He walked into the river very cautiously up to his 
knees, then up to his waist, when, bending forward, he 
found he could just reach him. 

" Now then, steady !" he said, while I stood as rigid 
as a statue, the rod well bent and the line taut. I saw 
the shining point of the gaff under his belly, and the 
quick backward motion of Nimrod's arm. Then came 
a struggle, a splash, and a victory. 

'■'■ I've got him !" said Nimrod. 

" Good !" I replied ; " land him with great care." 
Then he was laid gently on the grass, his scaly sides 
glistening like molten silver, while I enjoyed a certain 
sensation of pride which only he can feel who plays an 
eighteen-pounder with a single gut and brings him to 
gaff. 

Curiously enough, I did not get another stir, though 
I whipped the stream until noon. I had had spoft 
enough, however, and felt content with the day's work. 
The truth is, there are very few delicious sensations in 
life entirely unalloyed with pain, and playing a salmon 
successfully is one of them. He is 

A fish of wonderful beauty and force, 

That bites like a steel-trap, and pulls like a horse ; 

and a man grows taller of stature and broader of heart 



164 Starboard and Port 

when he has safely landed one of these glories of the 
deep, after an hour's strategy and struggle. 

Pray do not think me over-enthusiastic. I am not 
so fascinated by the gentle art as to say that 

"All pleasures but the angler's bring 
I' th' tail repentance like a sting ;" 

but I do delight in the change from the worrying 
troubles of city life to the sweet and refreshing silence 
of the woods. 

" I love to see the man of care 

Take pleasure in a toy; 
I love to see him row or ride, 

And tread the grass with joy, 
Or throw the circling salmon-fly 

As lusty as a boy. 

" The road of life is hard enough, 

Bestrewn with slag and thorn ; 
I would not mock the simplest joy 

That made it less forlorn, 
But fill its evening path with flowers 

As fresh as those of morn." 

We soon after came across the other gentlemen of 
the party, who had enjoyed excellent luck, killing some 
very fine silver trout, and a dozen or so of the brook 
trout, weighing all the way from three quarters of a 
pound to a pound and a half. By this time, having 
come off without any breakfast, we were tolerably hun- 
gry. Fletch was so completely famished that, while 
we were busy putting our rods in order and admiring 
the beauties who had rewarded us for our toil, he built 
a fire out of drift-wood, and with a pronged stick to 
hold the fish steady managed to cook one of the small- 
er trout. He was compelled to eat it without bread, 



A Salmon and a Fox, 165 

pepper, or salt, or salt pork either — that ambrosial mys- 
tery with which trout should always be cooked ; and 
the consequence was that, though the first few mouth- 
fuls were delicious, the next few were only tolerable, 
and the next still hardly palatable, until at length he 
laid the charred remains on the grass, and expressed a 
preference for a different style of cooking. 

Bertric, who was always saying bright things, threw 
his hands up as though he had hit upon some new dis- 
covery, and said, 

*' Fellows, there's a farm-house yonder, and in that 
farm-house milk and bread, and in our wallets is silver, 
the logical result of all which is — the very thought re- 
vives me — dinner !" 

We were all hilarious except Nimrod, who was glum. 
That was a bad sign. 

" Well, Ancient Mariner," said Bertric, with a sly hit 
in the intercostal regions of Nimrod, "prythee, why 
so sad ?" 

Nimrod looked up with a shadow on his face, and 
replied, 

" Because that man don't keep a cow." 

" There goes my dinner !" cried Bertric : 

" * 'Twas ever thus, from childhood's hour 
I've seen my fondest hopes decay.' " 

*' Oh, no ; you needn't despair, for Jessie has cream," 
said Nimrod. 

" Jessie ? — who is Jessie ?" cried we all at once. 

" No matter who, nor yet what she is," some one 
said ; " if she has cream, it is enough." 

We afterward found it not only enough, but too 



1 66 Starboard and Port 

much. A walk — no, it was not that, for the word walk 
has a spring, an elasticity of suggestion in it — rather 
a trudge, for that is a heavy, leaden word, which ex- 
presses our condition — of half an hour, and we saw on 
a hill-side, the roots of whose ancient trees had never 
been taken out, a — what shall I call it ? It was not a 
house, for that expression gives you an idea of comfort 
and cleanliness. It was a frame building, about fifteen 
feet square, covered with a roof partly thatched, while 
the rest of it was covered with slabs. It was sided 
with castaway boards, which with singular unanimity 
refused to lie close together. In the window, one of 
the four squares had glass in it, but of the others two 
had a tuft of grass and an old hat, while the third had 
nothing. The door was hung on leathern hinges. 
The floor was the original earth ; the chimney and 
fire-place were of mud, and for beds there were two 
bunks, like those in a condemned fishing-sloop. 

Nimrod stood in the midst of this wilderness of 
squalor, and yelled " Jessie ! Jessie !" at the top of his 
voice ; but no Jessie appeared. '' TU find the girl ; she's 
hiding," he said, and with that he rushed to the barn, 
whence he soon emerged, bringing a woman apparently 
forty years of age. She came with great hesitation and 
diffidence, and only after repeated assertions on the 
part of Nimrod that nobody would hurt her. He 
had found her hidden away by crouching behind two 
cows. 

She was a pure-blooded Gaelic woman, speaking only 
her native language, with an exceptional word every 
now and then of very bad English. Her hair, which 
was in the utmost conceivable disorder, partly tied in 



A Salmon and a Fox, 



167 




a knot, and partly dangling 
over her shoulders, was 
coal-black. Her eyes re- 
sembled two lumps of bur- 
nished Lehigh. Her dress 
— if the few tattered arti- 
cles which failed to conceal 
her person could be called 
by so respectable a name 
— consisted of a variety of 
remnants which had seen 
better days, but which un- 
der no circumstances could 
experience worse. We all 
thought of Stonehenge ; for 
she was an ideal Druidess, and one of the " raal old 
stock." We should not have been more surprised if 
we had been suddenly transported to the time when 
Boadicea led her hosts through British forests. It was 
a superb touch of ancient history, not only in the per- 
son who stood before us, but in all the surroundings — 
the mud hut, the stumps of trees, the untilled ground, 
the background of forest, with not another domicile in 
sight to remind us of the nineteenth century. 

One of the party sat on the only seat in the hut, 
which was a three-legged stool, and the others stood or 
occupied the door-step. 

" Jessie, have you any cream ?" said Nimrod. 

That much at least she comprehended. She quickly 
brought from an outhouse a large water-bucket full of 
such cream as my eyes had never beheld. Here was 
a good dinner, and our anticipations were of the most 



1 68 Starboard and Port, 

favorable kind. But they were quickly dashed with 
disappointment, for Jessie's subsequent proceedings 
dispelled the illusion. She washed her hands and arms 
in a vessel which had been recently used for cooking 
purposes, then deliberately rinsed a couple of pint 
bowls in the same water, and wiped them on a towel 
whose condition was indescribable. And that was 
household economy. 

*' Cream don't agree with me — it makes me sick," 
said Bertric. 

" I don't feel as hungry as I did," said Stigand. ** I 
think I won't spoil my appetite until we get home." 

This was a dilemma. I was dying for the cream, but 
under the peculiar circumstances felt that at least the 
edge of my appetite was gone. So, while the rest 
were engaged in conversation, I took one of the bowls, 
slipped out to a spring near by, washed it thoroughly, 
and then came back triumphant. I dipped it into the 
bucket, and had my fill. The others took the hint, and 
did the same thing; so we had a very delicious meal 
after all. 

I speak of this experience because of the central per- 
sonage. You do come across in these far-away coun- 
tries, once in a while, a most imposing bit of ancient 
time. As in some secluded alcove of a museum you 
surprise yourself with the sight of a rare antique, the 
last trace of which you supposed lost, so in Cape Bre- 
ton, and along the upper edges of Canada, you hit 
upon a human curiosity at rare intervals who reminds 
you of the time when the world was in its swaddling- 
clothes. Jessie looked like, and I think even now that 
she may have been, one of the original Iceni who help- 



A Salmon and a Fox, 169 

ed to throw up the earthworks at Devil's Ditch, to 
keep the Romans out. As a fly in amber, so she ex- 
ists in the nineteenth century. I left her feeling that 
I had communed with the past, and with the hope that 
I might never see it again. 

After dinner at the Scotchman's, some one of the 
party suggested that a good square meal cooked by 
Ah Boo would be very desirable. The truth is, we 
were half starved. The bread was sour and black, the 
coffee had not the most distant connection with either 
Java or Mocha, but was a drink by itself, while the tea 
was so decidedly "yarby " that we threw it out of the 
window when the maid turned her back. I can rough 
it in camp where I can cook myself, or oversee it ; but 
the food which is found in the backwoods of Cape 
Breton would put to a severe test the digestive organs 
of a bronze lion, 

" Home it is !" we cried all at once, and in half an 
hour we had made arrangements with our host to carry 
us back in his two teams, and were on our way sing- 
ing at the top of our voices at the prospect of a clean 
table-cloth. Thus perfectly does man's stomach rule 
and decide his destiny. The going and coming had 
cost each of the seven just seven dollars and sixty- 
nine cents in gold, and the net result was one salmon 
and a few trout. That is hardly a fair estimate, how- 
ever, since we had enjoyed the scenery amazingly, and 
would not have missed the insight we got into the 
habits of the people, and the view of the Gaelic Jessie, 
for double the amount. 

We went back by the same road along which we 
came, because there was no other. Nothing disturbed 

H 



170 Starboard and Port, 

the serenity of the trip until we reached Broad Cove, 
after which time my happiness at least v/as seriously 
marred. One of the horses had lost a shoe, so we 
had twenty minutes for refreshments. Bertric went to 
one house, where they had milk but no bread, and to 
another, where they had bread but no milk. We suc- 
ceeded in making a combination of the two home- 
steads, and were about to leave, when a farmer's wife 
called out after us, saying she had a tame fox, and 
wanting to know if we would like to see it.. 

Of course we were eager to gaze on any thing in the 
way of a curiosity, and so we filed Indian fashion 
through a narrow gate and into the back-yard. Little 
Reynard was a red-haired beauty, and my heart warm- 
ed to him to such an extent that I boldly asked the 
price. The woman agreed to let me have him for two 
dollars, if I would give her half a dollar for his chain. 
As a fox without a chain is a great deal closer to the 
woods than he is with one, I bought both, and for a 
minute was happy. My happiness began to curdle, 
however, in a short time, and not long afterward it 
turned irretrievably sour. Behold Fletch and myself 
in the single wagon. I had the fox in my lap, his 
chain wound around my arm. The dog was on the 
bottom of the wagon, howling with all his might, and 
so uneasy that I was compelled to hold on to his collar 
to keep him from jumping out, which would have in- 
creased our trouble, because he was so foot-sore that he 
could not run a rod. The horse required incessant 
urging of the most stimulating kind, which I adminis- 
tered at paroxysmal intervals with a long branch which 
I had cut for the occasion. Besides this, I had a gun 



A Salmon and a Fox, 171 

between my legs, which the restive dog came near fir- 
ing several times by rubbing up against the hammer. 
I never came nearer losing my temper, and giving up 
the ghost altogether, than I did on that occasion. 
Fletch could not help me, for he had the reins in one 
hand, while with the other he guarded several bundles 
which seemed inclined to leap over the back-board. 
To make matters worse, and as though Fate had it all 
her own way, and had determined to pile the Ossa on 
the Pelion of vexation, one of the boards in the bottom 
of the wagon dropped out, which let the dog half-way 
through every once in a while. My time was chiefly 
spent in whipping the horse and cosseting the fox, 
catching hold of the gun just as it was about to drop 
out of the wagon, and yanking the dog from the hole 
through which he and the small -sized buffalo skin, 
which served as a mat, were continually falling. My 
conversation was somewhat fragmentary, and consisted 
of ejaculatory phrases without any special coherence, 
while my thoughts were directed from one subject to 
another with such rapidity that my whole brain was 
dizzy. " Get up there ! Poor Foxy, you needn't be 
frightened. Keep still, Frank !" — the dog. " There he 
goes through that hole again !" I think I have seldom 
in my life experienced such a sense of relief as I en- 
joyed when we finally drove down to the wharf and 
hailed the Nettie, 

When we got on board Ah Boo had a hot supper 
ready, and a happier set of men your eyes never be- 
held. 



172 Starboard and Port 




CHAPTER X. 

ALONG PRINCE EDWARD'S. 

*' The powerful sails, with steady breezes swell'd, 
Swift and more swift the yielding bark impell'd." 

Falconer. 

E intended to make up for loss of 
sleep on the Margaree expedition 
by lying idle all the next day. 
There is something delicious and 
recuperative in the indolence of 
yacht life. To lie down on deck, a thick wolf- skin 
underneath you, book in hand, and to skip the dry 
places in the narrative by lifting the eyes to the sea, 
forests, and sky occasionally, constitutes one of the 
most delightful of possible experiences. All this pleas- 
ure we had proposed to ourselves ; but in the morning 
the wind came up fresh from the southwest, and Ed- 
wards suggested that it would be too bad to lose such 
a breeze. 

Our plans were, however, in great confusion. We 
had hoped to go to the Bay of Islands on the west 
coast of Newfoundland, and Rev. Mr. Harvey, of St. 
John's, Newfoundland, had, with kindness unparalleled, 
engaged four Indians whom we were to take aboard at 
the Bay of Despair, and had also gathered a quantity 
of information for our use. But there were several rea- 



Along Prince Edward's, 173 

sons why it was impossible to change our hopes into 
reaHties. We gave this project up, for which we had 
made very extensive preparations, and had not yet 
fixed upon the new route to be taken. At some future 
time I hope I shall be able to carry out a plan which 
has been in my mind for a long time, namely, to cross 
the island of Newfoundland by way of the Bay of Isl- 
ands, go up the Humber River in canoes, then by a 
short portage cross to Deer Lake, thence to Great In- 
dian Pond, and so on down the River of Exploits to 
Hall's Bay. That is an ideal trip for a party of half a 
dozen sturdy and enduring men. In the woods are 
plenty of caribou, with once in a while a black bear 
for a target at one hundred yards. In the water are 
salmon in great abundance, and trout enough to fill 
the creeks of the world, and on the water mallards 
and canvas-backs. 

It started my lachrymal fount, and gave me a very 
queer, dull, and unpleasant feeling about the heart, 
when I convinced myself that the project must be 
abandoned. But we were all disappointed in the prog- 
ress we had made at night. During July and August 
the wind has a very disagreeable way of going down 
with the sun, and leaving you to roll about, heading 
toward every point of the compass until daybreak. It 
was a rare fortune for us to make even thirty or forty 
miles from eight o'clock in the evening until seven the 
next morning ; and many a night we slipped backward 
on the current, the big sails slatting, and not a breath 
of wind. This inevitable delay cut our vacation down 
at least two weeks, and rendered it impossible to ac- 
complish air we had laid out. 



174 Starboard and Port, 

"Yes," I said to Edwards, ''it's a splendid breeze, 
but where shall we go ? What we are after is good 
hunting and fishing, and where shall we find these 
things ? When we got to Halifax, they told us the 
rivers were fished to death, but that we should find all 
we wanted farther on. When we reached Canso, they 
said the waters had been whipped until the last fish 
had taken to the ocean, and the woods contained 
nothing bigger than woodpeckers. We have just come 
from the Margaree, and have been informed that all 
the officers in the British army have been before us, 
but that we can get game enough in the higher lati- 
tudes. We can go to Aspee Bay, round Cape North, 
but we shall probably meet the same fortune there. 
They will send us to Newfoundland, and the New- 
foundlanders will send us to Labrador, and the Labra- 
dorians will send us to Greenland." 

"Aspee Bay," said Edwards — "I'm no pilot there; 
but I can carry you to Gaspe Bay, on the other shore, 
and I think you will get all you want there." 

" Gaspe — where is that ?" said Ruloff. 

" Just this side of the mouth of the St. Lawrence," 
responded Edwards ; " and the whole coast is full of 
interest, while the scenery is magnificent." 

" Hallo, there, Nimrod !" I shouted. 

" Aye, aye, sir," was the reply from that important 
functionary. 

" Have you ever been to Gaspe ?" 

" That have I sir, and many a time.* 

" Are there any deer in the woods?" 

" The woods are full of them, sir," asserted this ar- 
rant knave, who never once confessed to ignorance of 
any subject or place. 



Along Prince Edward's, 175 

** Can we get any ducks there ?" 

" Ducks ? my eyes, sir ! I was out there once when 
we killed ducks with clubs, they were so thick. We 
filled the boat till we were afraid it would sink, and 
then were fairly driven home by the flocks of them 
that insisted on being killed." 

This we knew to be a yarn told in the interest of 
two dollars, gold, a day ; but as Edwards assured us that 
he had seen plenty of birds around Bonaventura, just 
this side of Gaspe, we concluded to turn our prow in 
that direction. 

" Well, up with your anchor. Captain Comstock, and 
we'll go as far as this wind will carry us." 

The sails were hoisted, the anchor weighed, and in 
half an hour we were out of Port Hood, and headed for 
East Point Light, on the S.E. end of Prince Edward's 
Island. 

That was another white day in our calendar. No 
sooner had we got fairly out to sea than the wind 
freshened to a ten-knot breeze, and we went bowling 
along at the most exhilarating rate. We sighted East 
Point when we had been out little over an hour, and in 
another hour we had passed it, and laid our course 
along the edge of the island. We sailed almost due 
west, and most of the time within a mile of the shore. 

As we passed one inlet after another, the history of 
this most delightful spot, cuddling in the southwest 
corner of the magnificent gulf, was brought to mind. 
Prince Edward's Island is about one hundred and forty 
miles long, if you follow the bend of the land, the 
northern line of which resembles the concave line of a 
new moon, while it is only about ninety-five miles from 



176 Starboard and Port. 

East Point to North Point, if you go by water. It con- 
tains 1,360,000 acres of rich land, with hardly any rocks, 
and the soil is red in color like that of New Jersey. 
There are no mountains, and only a few hills of any 
considerable height. The coast is very low, seldom 
rising in its steepest bluff to more than a hundred 
feet. It was discovered by the irrepressible Cabot, 
who called it St. John's, on the 24th of June, 1497, 
and it consequently belonged to Great Britain accord- 
ing to the rule of the early navigators, which Freneau 
has put in the following distich : 

*' For the time once was, to all be it known, 
When all a man sailed by, or saw, was his own." 

Cabot took possession of it immediately after his 
discovery of Newfoundland, when he was on " the 
starboard tack," and running for the Strait of Fronfac, 
or Canso. The greedy French, however, were the first 
actual possessors by pre-emption, and they annexed it 
to New France, or Canada, afterward leasing it, together 
with the Magdalen Islands, which are only about twenty 
leagues distant to the northeast, to the Sieur Doublett, 
who was a captain in the French navy, to be held as a 
feudal tenure of the company of Miscou. After the 
capture of Louisburg, however, it fell again into En- 
glish hands, and there it has remained ever since. 

It is almost wholly dissimilar to any land that lies 
adjacent. Its soil is especially favorable to ordinary 
products, and it may well be called the granary of the 
northeast. The climate is something wonderful, being 
neither so cold in winter nor so hot in summer as 
Lower Canada, while it is entirely free from the innu- 



Along Prince Edward's, 177 

merable fogs which slip over Cape Breton and Nova 
Scotia. It is said that the inhabitants very frequently 
reach one hundred years of age without ever suffering 
from serious illness. The air is dry and bracing, and 
no better project could be set on foot than to empty 
the hospitals of the world on these generous shores. 
The fell diseases with which we of the eastern coast 
are so afflicted, as consumption, for example, and inter- 
mittent fevers, are never known ; while nonagenarians 
and centenarians who are still able to do a fair day's 
work on the farm are met with at every turn. Indeed, 
it is an ideal spot for the invalid ; and the time is not 
far distant when that ghastly crowd that yearly goes 
to Florida to die will change their course, and go to 
Prince Edward's to live. I have often wondered at 
this American folly which prompts one who is in the 
last stages of consumption, or who has a serious diffi- 
culty with throat or lungs, to leave a comfortable home 
that he may roost on the branches of the Florida coast, 
at a cost of five or six dollars a day and nothing to 
eat. 

I sometimes suspect that it is all a ruse of the 
doctors, who do not care to have a patient die on their 
hands, and who, therefore, advise a trip to the sunny 
South, which sounds well enough, but which is in re- 
ality a trip to the grave-yard. Florida is a Moloch 
who must be dethroned. He has an insatiable appe- 
tite, and is everlastingly demanding more ; and more 
he will have, so long as fashion holds control over hfe 
and death as now. When we wake from our delusion, 
we shall find that the dry, bracing, life-giving atmos- 
phere of some favored spot like Prince Edward's is 

H 2 



178 Starboard arid Port, 

worth far more than the subtle poison of Florida, even 
if the camellias do blossom there in February, and the 
sun coaxes the mercury up to seventy-five. I do not 
care to sit in judgment on the opinion of a physician, 
but if I had a cross-grained uncle who was worth a 
million, and who had made a will in my favor ; and if 
this aforesaid relation was coughing about the house 
all day, giving me as it were an anticipatory view of 
his fortune ; and if, furthermore, I was possessed of a 
diabolical thirst of gain, I should coax him to go to 
Florida, and, taking his exact measure in feet and 
inches, should confide it to a neighboring undertaker 
before he started. But if, on the other hand, I wished 
to retain him a little longer amid these sublunary 
scenes, free from bronchitis and tubercles, I should 
pack him off for some such secluded spot as Prince 
Edward's, where the refreshing air and equal tempera- 
ture would rebuild his shattered constitution. 

I would like nothing better than to land at St. 
Peter's Bay, and with a couple of ponies raised from 
good English stock, for which the island has become 
famous, start on a trip over the entire island, hunting 
in its woods, fishing in its rivers and lakes, and stopping 
at the always hospitable farm-houses at night. With 
sweet bread, fresh milk and eggs, and rich cream, I 
think I could manage to survive for a month or two 
at least. 

That was certainly superb sailing we had that day. 
Every stitch of canvas drew. We had up, besides the 
deck sails, consisting of mainsail, foresail, and jib, the 
main and fore gaff topsails, the flying jib, and the jib 
topsail. The Nettie fairly danced through the water. 



Along Prince Edward's, 179 

The sea was smooth, for we were under the lee of the 
island, and the yacht, heeling over until the waves 
once in a while swashed aboard, cut the deep as though 
she were chasing an enemy, or being chased by one. 
The sun was out in a sky almost cloudless, and the 
white-caps made the gulf look like a caldron of molten 
silver. Once in a while a gust would come which 
suggested the propriety of taking in the top-hamper, 
when every part of the standing rigging seemed to 
strain itself to the utmost to hold on, and when the 
vibrating ropes made a music which the sailor delights 
to hear more than the tuneful chords of the harp ; and 
then again the wind would settle down for half an hour 
to a blow so steady that the high-water mark on the 
lee side did not vary an -inch. 

We tried to find some poetry which would fitly 
describe our situation and feelings, but most of the 
poets who have written about the merry and the dan- 
gerous moods of salt water were landsmen, and would 
have been too seasick in a gale to think of rhyming. 
There is a vast deal of shoal-water poetry, which ex- 
pends its music on gulf-weed, the sea-mew, drift-wood, 
the coral grove, and the ebb and flow, but very little 
that may be called deep-sea poetry, which portrays the 
sterner temper of old Ocean when he chafes and storms 
in a glorious burst of indignation. It is one thing to 
sit on an overhanging cliff and imagine a plunging 
vessel on a lee shore, and quite another thing to be on 
board, and put the actual scene in rhythmic phrase. 

There is, however, a grandeur in these lines of Ho- 
mer which brings the earnestness of the sea before 
you, as little modern poetry does, and makes you 



i8o Starboard and Port 

almost feel the crisp wind, as it dashes the spray in 
your face : 

"There was his palace in the deep sea-water, 
Shining with gold, and builded firm forever; 
And there he yoked him his swift-footed horses 
(Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden), 
With golden thongs ; his golden goad he seizes ; 
He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly ; 
Yea, drives he forth his steeds into the billows." 

Then again Scott, though he knew so little of sea- 
water, gives us a taste of an eight-knot breeze in his 
song, which I have repeated so many times in the ear 
of half a gale : 

"Merrily, merrily bounds the bark, 
She bounds before the gale; 
The mountain breeze from Ben-na-darch 
Is joyous in her sail. 

" With fluttering sound, like laughter hoarse, 

The cords and canvas strain ; 
The waves, divided by her force. 
In rippling eddies chase her course 

As if they laugh'd again." 

How many times has the sailor stood at the stern, 
and, looking on the wake of the vessel, laughed in his 
heart to see the trembling waves apparently rush after 
the vessel as though they would try to catch it ; and 
the low murmuring sound of the waters gurgling about 
the rudder have seemed to rebuke the craft for its in- 
trusion among the sportive waves. 

"Merrily, merrily bounds the bark, 
O'er the broad ocean driven ; 
Her path by Ronin's mountain dark, 
The steerman's hand has given. 



Along Prince Edward's. i8i 

"Merrily, merrily goes the bark, 

On a breeze from the northward free; 
So shoots through the morning sky the lark, 
Or the swan through the summer sea. 

" Merrily, merrily goes the bark ; 
Before the gale she bounds ; 
So flies the dolphin from the shark, 
Or the deer before the hounds." 

Longfellow, in his exquisite little poem on " The 
Wreck of the Hesperus;' gives us a life-like view of 
the gale on a lee shore, and must have drawn on his 
own experiences when he talked of 

" The vessel in its strength ; 
She shuddered, and paused like a frightened steed. 
Then leaped her cable's length." 

Byron, who was exceedingly fond of the water, and 
enjoyed the ocean in its roughest moods, has left but 
one poem at all worthy of the theme, but that is so 
grand that one likes to read it on shipboard, when he 
is far out at sea, and never tires of the orchestral 
rhythm of the lines which seem to fill his soul to 
complete satisfaction. 

The only sailor poet in our language who has vent- 
ured to describe the ocean in calm and storm is William 
Falconer. When a boy he was 

" Forlorn of heart, and by severe decree 
Condemned reluctant to the faithless sea." 

For many years he was only a forecastle-hand, and 
then obtained a position as midshipman on board the 
Royal George. Every lover of the water reads his 
" Shipwreck" with pleasure and admiration, for his de- 



1 82 Starboard and Port. 

scriptlons are not only exquisite, but true to the letter. 
Here is a picture which no one has excelled, and which 
brings a ship on the eve of starting vividly to view : 

"All hands unmoor! proclaims a boisterous cry; 
All hands unmoor ! the cavern'd rocks reply : 
Roused from repose aloft the sailors swarm, 
And with their levers soon the windlass arm : 
The order given, upspringing with a bound, 
They fix the bars, and heave the windlass round ; 
At every turn the clanging pauls resound ; 
Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave 
The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave. 
High on the slippery masts the yards ascend, 
And far abroad the canvas wings extend. 

* * * * * * 

Majestically slow before the breeze 
She moves triumphant o'er the yielding seas." 

His description of a fine breeze Is equally happy: 

" O'er the smooth bosom of the faithless tides, 
Propell'd by flattering gales, the vessel glides ;" 

and when the wind increases, 

" The lighter sails, for summer winds and seas, 
Are now dismissed, the straining masts to ease ;" 

and 

" The powerful sails, with steady breezes swelled, 
Swift and more swift the yielding bark impelled." 

Soon a squall strikes her, and the poet's word-paint- 
ing Is as vivid as ever : 

" But see ! In confluence borne before the blast, 
Clouds roll'd on clouds the dusky noon o'ercast : 
The blackening ocean curls, the winds arise. 
And the dark scud in swift succession flies. 
While the swoln canvas bends the masts on high, 
Low in the wave the leeward cannon lie. 



Along Prince Edward's, 183 

The master calls, to give the ship relief, 
The topsails lower, and form a single reef. 
Each lofty yard with slackened cordage reels ; 
Rattle the creaking blocks and ringing wheels. 
Down the tall masts the topsails sink amain, 
Are mann'd and reefd, then hoisted up again." 

Here follows a passage which is so true to nature 
that you can almost hear the song of the sailors as 
they haul the sheets block -a -block, while the vessel 
heels till her gunwale kisses the crests of the waves: 

"The foresail braced obliquely to the wind, 
They near the prow the extended tack confined; 
Then on the leeward sheet the seamen bend, 
And haul the bowline to the bowsprit- end. 
The mainsail, by the squall so lately rent, 
In streaming pendants flying, is unbent ; 
With brails refixed, another soon prepared, 
Ascending, spreads along beneath the yard. 
To each yard-arm the head-rope they extend, 
And soon their earings and their robans bend. 
That task performed, they first the braces slack, 
Then to the chess-tree draw the unwilling tack. 
And, while the lee clew-garnet's lowered away. 
Taut aft the sheet they tally, and belay." 

There are in this description a vast number of what 
Pope contemptuously styles " tarpaulin phrases," but 
they are so skillfully and rhythmically used that they 
do not mar the verse. They are noble lines, and we 
enjoy them as keenly as if. they had flowed from the 
pen of Virgil. 

I can not refrain from introducing one more quota- 
tion from this poet, over whose cradle, if he had been 
born in Greece, a graceful cluster of legends would 
have hung, which is so wonderfully vivid that one 



1 84 Starboard and Port 

almost feels himself to be aboard, and begins to think 
seriously of his policy of Hfe- insurance. The noble 
ship is staggering to a watery grave : 

** In vain the cords and axes were prepared, 
For every wave now smites the quivering yard. 
High o'er the ship they throw a dreadful shade. 
Then on her burst in terrible cascade ; 
Across the founder'd deck o'erwhelming roar, 
And foaming, swelling, bound upon the shore. 
Swift up the mounting billow now she flies, 
Her shatter'd top half buried in the skies ; 
Borne o'er a latent reef the hull impends. 
Then thundering on the marble crags descends : 
Her ponderous bulk the dire concussion feels, 
And o'er upheaving surges wounded reels — 
Again she plunges ! hark ! a second shock 
Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock — 
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, 
The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes 
In wild despair ; while yet another stroke 
With strong convulsion rends the solid oak: 
Ah Heaven ! — behold her crashing ribs divide ! 
She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide." 

While soliloquizing thus, the pilot came to me about 
noon, and, pointing to the land, said, 

" That is Tracadie Harbor just opposite." 

" Then we are a little more than a third of the dis- 
tance to North Point. Isn't it a lovely island ! Just 
ahead of us there are high bluffs, while the last few 
miles of shore have been very level and very low. 
But I see no rocks — how is that?" 

'' There are no rocks on the island," he replied ; 
" that is, none to interfere with agriculture. The soil 
is rich, and makes one of the best farming districts in 
the world." 



Along Prince Edward's. 185 

" But with such a loose soil I should think the cur- 
rents, which in a northeaster must set shoreward with 
great force, would wash the coast away, just as happens 
at Nantucket, for instance." 

" It would have been washed away long ago but for 
the millions of clams and muscles, which are thick 
enough to make a kind of breakwater. Halloo, the 
wind gives a little — what does that mean ?" 

We had been going with a perfect rush, logging 
ten miles for the first two hours, and twelve for the 
last three, but suddenly, as though the wind had 
blown itself out, the sails began to flap, and we were 
as still as a " painted ship upon a painted ocean." 

*' John, get the bait, and Ah Boo, my Celestial beauty, 
get the lines, for this is one of the finest fishing coasts 
in the world," some one said. ** See all about us a 
fleet of forty or fifty schooners hauling in the cod. 
Now for the first fish." 

In five minutes our lines, all the lines on board in 
fact, were over. 

" I have one !" and *' So have I !" and " I have two !" 
were the successive cries from stem to stern. 

That was a very neat little episode. It was dead 
calm for just fifteen minutes, and in that time we had 
brought on deck sixteen good-sized cod and haddock. 
Some of the cod were pale in color as though they had 
lived in the realms of eternal night, while others were 
as red as though they had been feeding on sunset. 

" There she comes again," said the captain, and, 
sure enough, the wind filled the sails, the Nettie started, 
and in half an hour we were bounding along at the old 
terrific rate. What a day of smooth sailing that was ! 



1 86 Starboard and Port, 

The waves fairly glistened with sunlight, and the sea 
was of that deep refreshing blue which so fascinates 
that you can not take your eyes from it, while the air 
was bracing and exhilarating to the last degree. Every 
body was in the highest spirits. Fowler was at the 
wheel, and he never once let her up as the gust struck 
her, but kept her going at her best speed. 

'' This is ideal ! — this is superb !" said Ruloff, as he 
paced the deck, striking his chest, and taking in great 
draughts of pure oxygen. 

" Arn't you glad you were born ?" said Bertric, " and 
isn't every breath a separate luxury ? The crotchety 
old fellow who said that the people who are dead and 
buried ought to be thankful never came to the St. 
Lawrence." We all responded to the sentiment, for 
such a day as that seldom visits our planet. 

By the middle of the afternoon we were off Rich- 
mond Harbor, and before supper we had passed North 
Point, and laid our course for Chaleur Bay. Nothing 
is more interesting than to notice the peculiarities of 
the shore as you pass it, or call to mind the salient 
points In the history of the people who inhabit it. 
There is not a single good harbor — i. e., a harbor easy 
of access — on the whole northern shore of Prince Ed- 
ward's. Every bay Is barricaded by sand-bars, and it is 
impossible to get in without the aid of a pilot, unless 
you are thoroughly acquainted. The light-houses are 
all good and sufficiently numerous, there being four in 
the ninety-five miles from west to east. It is a sorry 
place, however, when the wind is strong from the 
north, and at North Point we saw a huge three-master 
which had been thrown up on the sand stern first. 



Along Prince Edward's, 187 

Sailors are not overfond of this shore, because in 
thick weather it is impossible to calculate one's bear- 
ing. The wind has such complete control over the 
tides that the water sometimes runs one way for days. 
No tabular account of tides in the Gulf is of any value 
for this reason. For instance, when a strong southerly 
gale is blowing, the ebb of the great river is accelerated, 
and the waters along the western coast of Newfound- 
land are piled up at the Strait of Belle Isle, and the 
current sets to the northward for forty-eight hours or 
more. When, again, the wind blows from the north- 
east, this accumulation of waters is driven back, and 
the current sets through the Gut of Canso for an equal 
length of time, and along the north shore of Prince 
Edward's with such extreme irregularity that in stormy 
weather a good lookout is absolutely necessary. Noth- 
ing is easier than to make a fatal mistake in this mat- 
ter. The Almanac assures you that the tide is making 
to the southward, and in the thick fog or the cloudy 
darkness you lay your course accordingly; the truth 
may be that the southerly winds which have prevailed 
for a week past have piled the waters up to the north- 
ward, and that the current is still flowing at the rate of 
three miles an hour in that direction. And so it hap- 
pens that while you are sound asleep in your berth, 
perfectly sure that every thing is going on well, your 
craft is slowly but surely drifting toward the low line 
of sand, which is not easily discovered in a dark night, 
and you are rudely awakened by the sharp grating of 
the keel which is the death-knell of your noble vessel. 

When we were off Mirimichi, just to the westward 
of Cape North, and on the mainland, we read an ac- 



1 88 Starboard and Port 

count of the great fire which laid bare the whole coun- 
try for scores of miles around in 1825. It occurred 
after a long season of drought, and the dried under- 
brush and dead wood, together with the resinous quali- 
ty of the timber, furnished material for a conflagration 
which lasted for months. It filled the heavens to the 
westward with black smoke, which at night glistened 
with a million starry sparks, and made a spectacle 
which would have been of unparalleled grandeur but 
for the devastation already accomplished and the great- 
er devastation that was threatened. On the 6th of Oc- 
tober fitful blazes and flashes were seen just back of 
Newcastle and Douglastown, while the woods all along 
the banks of the Bartibogue were filled with the crack- 
ling and falling timber. The whole firmament seemed 
wrapped in a vengeful pall of vapor. Huge masses of 
black cloud cut through by flashes of fire, as though 
riven by lightning, settled down on the whole region, 
while the dull thunder of the fire-fiend's progress shook 
the hearts of the people all along the coast. This 
smoke so thoroughly pervaded the atmosphere that it 
produced upon the inhabitants an unaccountable lassi- 
tude and stupefaction. Showers of flaming brands fell 
on the little towns, which were as rapidly consumed 
as so much tinder. A hurricane, the necessary conse- 
quence of so much heat, bore the huge clouds aloft, 
until they looked like the black minarets of some de- 
mon's temple, while the crash of falling timber and the 
sullen roar of the fire sent dismay into a thousand 
hearts. The river was lashed to fury by the wind, and 
threw its boiling spray far up the shore. It resembled 
in its windings and its agonies an immense serpent in 



Along Prince Edward's, 189 

its death agony, writhing, tossing, tumbhng, and moan- 
ing in its fury. You can form some dim conception of 
the scene if you will imagine a conflagration extending 
more than one hundred miles over the country, and 
covering an area of nearly six thousand square miles 
of township and forest. In the river were something 
like one hundred and fifty vessels, some of which were 
burned to the water's edge, while others, burning and 
drifting down on their neighbors, set fire to their rig- 
ging and sails. More than five hundred human beings 
were consumed, and thousands of wild beasts, which 
afterward filled the air with pestilent contagion. 

After reciting all these scenes to each other, we set 
our watches for the night and went to bed. 



190 Starboard and Port. 




CHAPTER XL 

CHALEUR AND PERCE. 

J%- E went to bed, but not to sleep. In- 
stead of going down as usual, the 
wind freshened to half a gale by 
eleven o'clock, with a promise to 
increase still more before morning. 
The white-capped waves were run- 
ning high, and every few minutes we took a mountain 
of water on board which rushed like an avenging flood 
over the deck. I tried in vain to get into a doze, but 
though I wooed sleep in the most persistent manner, 
she was very coy, and refused to come near me. At 
one time I would lie flat on my back, when the vessel 
rolled and pitched in such unexpected directions that I 
was most unceremoniously tumbled from one side of 
the berth to the other. Then I curled my knees up 
and braced them against the side, determined not to 
yield, but in a moment I was bounced out of position, 
and bumped against the edge of the berth with such 
force that I determined to surrender unconditionally, 
and so got up and dressed. But dressing under such 
circumstances is no light task. I sat down on a chair 
to put my stockings on, and the next moment found 
myself sprawHng on the floor, my legs in air, and my 



Chaleur and Perce, 191 

head suffering from contact with the corner of my 
trunk. Now I leaned up against the door in the hope 
of successfully performing that series of gymnastics 
through which one goes when he tries to get into his 
pantaloons, but a sudden lurch threw me, when the 
work was half completed, against the berth, and man- 
aged to snarl up legs, pants, and arms in an inextrica- 
ble tangle. After a while, however, I succeeded in get- 
ting into my clothes, and finding my way on deck. 
The heavens were very dark, and the water was dash- 
ing about the bows in such a furious manner that all I 
could see forward of the foremast was an avalanche of 
foam. All around us, as far as eye could reach, the sea 
was a roaring, tumbling mass of white-caps. 

A night on the water out of sight of land is a very 
pleasant experience. One is constantly under the il- 
lusion that he sees lights, that he hears the booming of 
guns, or the solemn toll of the fog-bell. To one not 
yet accustomed to the ocean this is exceedingly pain- 
ful. He looks away to the starboard, or over on the 
port hand, and is morally certain that not far off he 
detects a light or hears a noise, and has the feeling 
that the pilot has mistaken his course, and that the 
vessel is going directly on shore. Then every thing is 
magnified at night: the waves seem higher, the wind 
blows more fiercely, the ship heels over more, the 
rigging is straining, and pretty nearly every thing is 
coming to pieces. 

The captain seemed very cheery, however, and that 
reassured me completely. 

" Isn't the old girl just trotting along !" he said, as 
he toolc a seat by my side. 



192 Starboard and Port 

" Yes ; but don't you think it a wild sort of night ?'* 
I suggested. 

" Wild ? Oh, no," he replied ; '■'■ one could not ask 
for a better time than this. The top -hamper is all 
snugly stowed, we have a free wind, and are jogging on 
at the rate of twelve knots by the log. What can any 
man want more ?" 

I brought the wolf-robe and a pillow on deck, and 
never enjoyed any thing so much in my life. The 
Nettie would struggle up a huge wave until she turned 
the summit, and then rush down the other side as 
though she were bound to bury herself under the next 
boulder. Indeed, it has always seemed to me a mira- 
cle that a vessel should rise just at the right moment. 
Why she does not contrive to sink when once she be- 
gins is a mystery. But when she has thrust her jib- 
boom into the wave ahead of her, and it is on the very 
point of coming aboard, and is curling and cresting for 
that purpose, hesitating before taking the final leap, 
the bows begin to lift, the stern settles down, and the 
danger is over. How many times I have sat at the 
cat-head and watched a huge seventh or tenth wave as 
it came on in its magnificence, and felt certain that its 
crystal walls would break at the bows, and that we 
should be flooded by a deck-load of salt water. The 
vessel has risen to the top of the wave, and then com- 
menced that descent which produces such a peculiar 
and unpleasant feeling in the abdominal regions of sen- 
sitive natures. She plunges headlong into the boiling 
mass entirely reckless of consequences, and, before you 
have recovered from the shiver that runs through you, 
she groans as she dashes the water away, and slowly, 



Chaletiv and Perce, 193 

oh, so slowly at first that your heart sinks within you, 
rises, with only a few bucketfuls of the briny splash on 
deck. 

With the same kind of wonder I have watched a 
horse manipulate, as it were, his feet. It has always 
seemed a miracle that his hind-feet never tread on his 
fore-feet, for the most natural thing in the world would 
be for his hind-quarters to run over the fore-quarters. 
The front-foot clings to the pavement until the hind- 
foot comes within half an inch of it, when, just in the 
nick of time, it is got out of the way, only to be put 
in the same dangerous position the next moment. 
I have looked at this spectacle, which has a kind of 
fascination, until I have grown so nervous that I had 
to hold on to the seat, momentarily expecting the 
creature to fairly run over himself, or roll himself up 
in a ball. 

At about two o'clock the next morning Ruloff 
showed his head above the companion-way with a — 

" Well, captain, what are you doing?" 

" Doing nothing but going ahead, and that at a 
spanking pace, too." 

" I wish you wouldn't make so much fuss about it, 
though," continued Ruloff; ^' not a wink of sleep have 
I had yet. That berth of mine is as uneasy as a chest- 
nut in the, fire. I have been knocked about until I 
feel like an enormous bruise." 

"Old Boreas is doing his best to-night," cried 
Stigand, as he emerged soon after. And at that, as 
though in proof of his assertion, the wind quietly 
lifted his hat from his head, carried it half way up 
the mainsail, and then bore it triumphantly away. 

I 



194 Starboard and Port 

" Well, that's a pretty trick to play a fellow who 
hasn't closed his eyes all night," he continued ; and 
then did what every man does who loses his hat under 
similar circumstances — that is, suddenly put both hands 
on his head, with the idea that an imaginary hat is still 
there, or under the delusion that his hair will soon fol- 
low his hat. Every body slaps his head when he loses 
his hat. It may be that the wind communicates the 
information to the muscles of the arm at the instant 
the hat begins to rise, and the arm and hand are a lit- 
tle sluggish in their movements, or it may be for some 
other metaphysical reason which I am unable to give ; 
but I never yet saw a man lose his hat without imme- 
diately clutching his hair. 

Perhaps it would be no more than fair to give an- 
other reason for the general appearance of the gentle- 
men on deck that night. I have referred to the costly 
purchase of a fox in a previous chapter. Allow me 
now to recall an episode in w^hich he was one of the 
chief actors. While the novelty of his presence lasted 
he was allowed to do pretty much as he pleased, and 
his antics were of the most grotesque kind. He was 
not a particle afraid of the dog, who in lumbering fash- 
ion chased him over the deck, when at length, tired of 
the little game, Reynard would make a short turn, run 
back on his track, and get into a snug hiding-place, 
while the dog, in the vain attempt to turn suddenly, 
tripped over a coil of rope, and rolled over and over. 
The little dog — we had two on board — which was one 
of the tiniest of black-and-tans, by no means so large 
as the fox, would once in a while resent the continued 
teasing of Reynard, who delighted to walk over him 



Chaleur and Perce, 195 

or lie down on him when he felt disposed to take a 
nap, and with a growl which displayed his white teeth 
to perfection would set on him. At such times the 
fox, whose offensive weapons did not lie in his jaws, 
would suddenly wheel round and present the other end 
of himself to the dog, who fastened his teeth into the 
fur, and generally came out of the conflict with such a 
mouthful of hair that for the next half- hour he was 
perfectly miserable. 

On this particular night the fox got loose, and roam- 
ed at his own sweet will. With his long chain attached 
to his neck, he came rattling down the cabin steps, 
which were covered with brass, ran around among the 
table and chair legs and into the kitchen, with such 
resounding and distracting noise that sleep became an 
impossibility. Bertric got up, ^/^ deshabille, and chased 
him. But in the dark it was no easy task to catch 
the fellow. What with the rolling and pitching of tjie 
vessel, added to the miraculous gyrations of the fox, 
it is not to be wondered at if a few plain English 
words expressed the utter disgust of Bertric at being 
compelled to engage in a fox-chase at midnight when 
it was difficult to keep one's feet under the most pro- 
pitious circumstances. 

" There, you rascal ! I've got you !" he cried at 
length, as he grasped the fur on the back of Mr. Fox. 
" You hideous wretch ! why did we ever pay two dol- 
lars and a half for you ?" Then he continued in a de- 
lightful monologue : " And why wern't you content 
with your native woods, instead of spoiling the tem- 
pers of Christian folk? Ugh ! how cold it is !" 

The poor fellow shivered as he carried the animal 



196 Starboard and Port, 

on deck, struggling all the while to get loose, and 
chained him, as he thought, securely to his barrel. 

He had, however, no sooner returned to his berth 
than the same rattling was heard, and with a groan of 
despair Bertric turned over in his berth, muttering, 

'' Well, some one else must try his hand at that thing 
this time. I'm actually shivering with cold, and won't 
get up again for all the foxes that ever stole chickens." 

A general chuckle was heard, which showed that the 
gentlemen were all awake, and had enjoyed the epi- 
sode. 

Pretty soon the fox jumped through one of the dead- 
lights, and landed, chain and all, on the cabin floor, with 
a noise which compelled a dismal "Oh dear!" to come 
from behind every curtain. Reynard leaped into one 
of the berths with the expectation of snuggling down 
for the night, when the occupant defeated his good in- 
tentions by giving him a push which sent him into the 
middle of the cabin. This experiment was tried on 
every sleeper, until at last Stigand, in sheer despera- 
tion, got up, saying, " I'm going to throw that fellow 
overboard ;" and, grabbing him in a way that indicated 
earnestness of character, carried him back to his barrel, 
where he was made so fast that the knot was untied 
with great difficulty the next day. 

What a magnificent sunrise we had the next morn- 
ing ! I saw it, not because I wanted to, but because I 
had to. I would have greatly preferred to be quietly 
asleep, and to have taken the grandeur of the occasion 
on the word of another, but nevertheless it was a sight 
not to be forgotten. The dull, gray clouds had settled 
in the eastern horizon in huge masses, while above 



Chaleur and Perce, 197 

long stretches of dark vapor lay athwart the sky. A 
faint tint of red suffused them all at first, and then it 
deepened, until the whole heavens in that direction 
seemed to fairly blaze with rich glory. Then the up- 
per disk of the sun was seen just above the horizon, 
and soon after the full round orb, of an orange color, 
which brightened until the eye could no longer look 
upon it, and day was fairly upon us. 

" Land on the port bow !" cried John. 

It was Miscou Island, at the southern entrance to 
Chaleur Bay — at least so the pilot affirmed. 

" Impossible !" we all cried at once. " We can not 
have come so far in so short a time." 

" Let her off a point," said the captain to the man 
at the wheel. " Come aft, now, and ease the sheets. 
There, that will do ; now let her travel." 

And we did travel. The yacht felt the slackening 
of the sheets, and we fairly whizzed through the water. 

"We shall sight Bonaventura in an hour," prophe- 
sied Edwards, " and then you will see ducks, if you 
never saw them before." 

What a grand sheet of water Chaleur Bay is, to be 
sure. It is the finest and largest harbor in the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. It is about twenty-five miles wide at its 
mouth, and runs inland to the mouth of the Resti- 
gouche nearly seventy.-five miles. About twenty-two 
miles to the eastward of Miscou is a huge sand-bank 
with from twenty to thirty fathoms of water, and there 
at almost any season are to be seen scores of schooners 
fishing for cod. 

Sure enough, in an hour the lookout cried, " Land 
right ahead !" and we were within ten miles of Bona- 



198 Starboard and Port, 

Ventura. It Is a picturesque spot, with perpendicular 
cliffs of red sandstone two hundred and fifty feet high 
to the seaward, and falling off at the westerly end to a 
pebbly beach. 

In these rocky cliffs thousands of gannets and tens 
of thousands of medrakes and cormorants build their 
houses. When we were just opposite we fired our 
guns, and there arose from the great fissures in the 
cliff flocks of birds so numerous that we were fairly 
startled. 

"Now for sport!" cried Fletch. "We'll run into 
Perc5, and have such a day's shooting as those birds 
have never heard tell of." 

" Oh, you can shoot till you are tired, and there will 
be plenty of game left for the next comer," said Ed- 
wards, quietly. 

The Nettie was put on the other tack — not an easy 
thing to accomplish in such a heavy sea — during which 
few minutes we were tossed so furiously that it seemed 
as if every line in the vessel would snap, and then we 
bounded along at a great rate for the little, but, except 
in a southwest wind, dangerous harbor of Perc^. 

Perc^ is one of the neatest villages I ever visited. 
Its Inhabitants are French, and they retain with un- 
daunted persistency the simplicity which has always 
been attributed to the Acadians. The few streets of 
the village are smooth and well taken care of. The 
houses are all comfortable, and have a decided air of 
thrift about them. Just in the rear of the village rises 
Mount Perc^, or Table Roulante, as it is sometimes 
called, to the unusual height of 1230 feet above the 
sea -level, and visible from a distance of forty miles. 



Chaleur and Perce. 199 

It is well wooded, but has a fair forest-road leading to 
the summit, from which the scenery is too exquisite to 
be described. The fishermen, who compose the inhab- 
itants of the village, set their nets regularly at sunrise, 
and gather in their spoils at sundown. A hundred 
boats are shoved off from the beach every day, while 
the air is filled with the rollicking songs of the toilers. 
They are a happy, honest folk, and the manufactories 
where the fish are cured are models of neatness and 
business thrift. Nowhere on the coast is such another 
spot to be found. 

The next morning Fletch and I went out of town 
to a little stream just back of Table Roulante, and en- 
joyed a few hours of fine trout-fishing. The game 
was not large, but numerous. We creeled several 
dozen, but our pleasure was somewhat lessened by the 
army of mosquitoes and black flies which attacked 
every exposed part of our persons. To this pest the 
midge joined forces, and altogether we had many more 
bites than fish. However, the drive into the country 
and along the beautiful beach just west of the village 
repaid us for our temporary unhappiness, and we re- 
turned to the yacht, with our speckled treasures and 
mottled faces, with an appetite which no city hfe has 
any conception of. And here let me observe that one 
of the charms of yachting is the appetite it develops, 
and the general physical condition it induces. One is 
necessarily in the open air all the time. By day, though 
lounging about on deck, he is conscious of the up- 
building that is going on in his system, and by night 
he sleeps with the sky-light and the dead-lights open, 
which makes the boat the equivalent of a tent in the 



200 Starboard and Port, 

woods. The wind whistles through, and he wakes in 
the morning as fresh as a daisy, and with a perfect 
willingness to engage in any undertaking, however 
arduous. It is worth something to have one's animal 
spirits at high-water mark ; and it is a good sign when 
one tumbles out of his berth, not lazily and languidly, 
as though he had just been through an ordeal and 
scarcely survived it, but with a leap and a jump, as 
though sleep had done its work in getting him into 
good fighting condition. 

" Cup coffee, sir ?" said Ah Boo every morning at 
about six. That was his only matutinal greeting ; 
and then, knowing what the answer would be, he hur- 
ried to the kitchen with a low chuckle to get the de- 
licious compound. 

" Coffee, steward ? Yes, and any thing else you can 
find on board in the way of eatables," was the usual 
answer sent after his retreating form. 

At sea one's digestive apparatus gets into admirable 
working order, and it is absolutely necessary to keep a 
good lookout for the commissary department. 

" Now then," said Ruloff, after dinner had been dis- 
posed of, " let's be off to Arch Rock." 

I have left this magnificent piece of nature to the 
present moment that I might bring it out in strong 
relief. It is one of the curiosities of the continent, and 
well repays a visit from any distance. It is an abrupt, 
precipitous rock, that rises perpendicularly from the 
water to the height of nearly three hundred feet, 
and in its contour is not unlike a huge vessel. We 
approached its bows, the western end, and it seemed 
to us very like the Great Eastern, which had come to 



Chaleur and Perce, 201 

anchor on this northern coast. At the Perc^ end it is 
sharp Hke the bows of a vessel, while at the other end 
it rounds like its stern. It is about fifteen hundred 
feet long, and has two natural arches, through which 
boats can float at high tide, and one of which is plainly 
visible many miles at sea. 

When one lands at its base he is compelled, as it 
were, to look twice before his vision reaches the top ; 
that is, he looks at a point that is as high as he has 
before conceived the rock to be, and finds that it is only 
half-way up. Then, after resting his eyes for a mo- 
ment, he looks far up into the distance, and sees there 
overhanging edges of rough, rugged rock, which seem 
as if they were about to fall and crush him. We sat 
or lay down on the beach, scarcely speaking. to each 
other for a full half-hour, perfectly satisfied with sim- 
ply gazing at the monster. 

Then Fletch was called back from his reverie by 
a huge yellowish plover strutting along the shore. 
Poor plover ! his time had come to be metamorphosed 
into one of the ingredients of a pie, and he submitted 
to his fate without a murmur. Our journey round the 
base of the rock was a constant surprise. Here, for 
instance, was a pebbly beach in the shape of a horse- 
shoe, and about fifty feet long, while immediately be- 
hind it was a cavern in the rock, hollowed out by the 
waves of a thousand years, the sides of which were as 
smooth as polished marble. There, just beyond, was 
the first arch, about ten feet high, and twelve or fifteen 
feet wide. The tide ebbed and flowed through it, and 
it looked more like the well-calculated handiwork of 
man than the result of natural forces. And there 

I2 



202 Starboard and Port 

again, farther on, was the large arch, about twenty- 
feet high, and perhaps twenty -five broad, which we 
had seen when six or eight miles away, and which 
gives the rock its name. 

We scrambled through it, and got a grand view of 
the rock from the other side ; then determined to come 
down from the poetical to the practical by trying our 
guns on the various kinds of birds which filled the air. 
Imagination alone can compute the numbers of gulls 
and cormorants which inhabit this romantic spot, for 
no human arithmetic can approximate to the sum 
total. We paddled off almost twenty rods from the 
rock, and looking up saw every ledge that jutted out 
from this entire surface literally packed with birds. 
When they flew, they flew in enormous crowds, and 
their choral screeches could be heard at a fabulous dis- 
tance. We were told that on the top of the rock are 
tens of thousands of eggs ; that in former times an ad- 
venturer would once in a while scale the dizzy height 
for purposes of curiosity or gain, but that the feat 
was of such a dangerous nature that a law had been 
recently passed prohibiting it under severe penalty. 
But besides the danger of climbing these unruly crags, 
some of which are unpleasantly loose, and give under 
one's weight, is to be taken into account the fierce on- 
slaughts of the birds. It is as much as a man's life is 
worth to invade the possessions of the gulls. It may 
seem very like a sailor's yarn to say that these creat- 
ures in immense numbers are a formidable enemy, but 
such nevertheless is the truth. They can not be 
frightened by the discharge of a gun, for they are ex- 
ceedingly loyal in their parental love, nor can they be 



Chaleiir and Perch 203 

beaten off with clubs. They swoop down on one with 
a kind of war-whoop, and with their sharp bills make 
sad havoc with one's clothes and flesh, and have a 
particular fancy for one's eyes. At any rate, the in- 
habitants of the village, though covetous of gulls' eggs, 
have no inclination to risk themselves on the top of 
Arch Rock. 

After a few discharges of our guns, a division of the 
grand army took its flight, and in dizzy circles cut 
the air above our heads. We managed, after patiently 
waiting for them to return from their lofty height, to 
drop a few of the medrakes, whose wings seemed to be 
in demand, and one or two of the immense gray gulls, 
which have bodies no larger than a full-grown chicken, 
but wings large enough to carry a good-sized boy well 
up toward the moon. The cormorants are also huge 
birds, with coarse, dissonant voices, and wings as dark 
as night. They look clumsy as geese in the distance, 
with their long necks stretched out, but they manage 
to keep out of range in their rapid flight. All over 
the water were scattered sea-pigeons, which can be had 
in any numbers. They are too fishy to satisfy an ordi- 
nary palate, though they do very well as a side dish. 

The next morning it was blowing heavily, and, as 
the wind threatened a change, we determined to get 
away as soon as possible. So our anchor was weighed, 
and we started across Mai Bay for the Bay of Gaspe. 

Gaspe Bay is very small in comparison with Chaleur 
Bay, but in many respects it is not less Important or 
remarkable. At Its entrance, and on the northeast 
side, is Cape Gaspe, a headland of limestone, the 
terminus of a magnificent range of cliffs, which rise 



204 Starboard and Port 

nearly seven hundred feet above the sea-level, and in 
many places are almost perpendicular. On the south 
side the shore is also very bold, and several good-sized 
streams pour over the bluffs in a white sheet of snowy 
foam, adding greatly to the fascinations of a very 
charming landscape. As you enter the bay the scene 
is of the most ravishing description. The shore to the 
right is quite thickly settled by fishermen, whose little 
cottages, with the background of forest and foreground 
of water, are romantic to the last degree. On the left, 
just within the bay, and beyond Red Head, is the town 
of Douglas, where vessels can find a good harbor with 
still water. And away off in the distance, right before 
you, rise the mountains, upon whose tops the clouds 
seem to settle, as though they took pride in making 
the picture perfect. 

But the most curious and valuable peculiarity of 
Gaspe is what is called the Basin. This is a sheet of 
water at the northwestern end of the bay, on which 
the town of Gaspe is situated, so entirely landlocked 
that it is as quiet as a mill-pond, even in the roughest 
weather. No matter how or which way the wind 
blows, not the faintest perceptible undulation, not 
even the dimmest and most indistinct echo of a swell, 
ever intrudes. It is an ideal anchorage, large enough 
to accommodate a fleet, and with water enough to float 
the largest of them all. 

Having come to anchor here, with the expectation 
of spending about a week on the salmon rivers and in 
the woods, we filled up our ice-chest and water-tanks, 
and made arrangements to have the commissary well 
taken care of. This was the farthest point north we in- 



Chaleur and Perce, 205 

tended to make. It would have been delightful to have 
run over to Antlcosti, but thirty miles away, or across 
to the Mingan Islands and the Labrador coast, about 
fifty more, but one's appetite is never satisfied, and so 
we left these things for another year. There is some- 
thing wonderful about ocean traveling. You may 
go as far as you please, but you always want to see 
the next place. You are never satisfied, but forever 
dreaming of new pleasures and new discoveries for 
the morrow. Our time was limited, however, and we 
were compelled to restrain at once our curiosity and 
our love of adventure. 

There are only about one or two hundred inhabitants 
in Gaspe, part of which, those on the northerly side of 
the Basin, are English and Scotch, while the rest, those 
on the southerly side, are French. There is one church 
in the village, the Episcopal, finely situated on the 
side of a hill, overlooking the northern arm, but with 
such interior accommodations that the patience of the 
saintly is severely tried, while the temper of the pro- 
fane is lost entirely. We worshiped with the little 
congregation one afternoon, and marveled that it was 
possible to crowd so much discomfort into so small a 
space. Why is it, I wonder, that you are allowed, at 
home, to sit in a chair with such an incline to its back 
that you are rested, while in some churches to sit 
down is torture, and to stand up is impossible ? If I 
had a boy whom I wanted to bring up in such fashion 
that he would never cross the threshold of a church 
after his twenty-first birthday, I would send him to some 
village church like that at Gaspe, or like most of the 
churches along the coast, where he could neither lean 



2o6 Starboard and Port 

back nor yet sit up straight, but must needs lean for- 
ward just enough to be wretched, and endure the tor- 
ment of having the ornamental rim on the top of the 
pew cut across his back. If he did not eschew all 
forms of religion after that, it would be because his 
parentage was too much for him. 

We paid a visit the next day to the customs officers, 
who were very kind and considerate to us as owners 
of a vessel from foreign parts, and also to the gentle- 
manly American consul, who gave us a refreshing peep 
into New York and Boston papers. 

For a day or two we simply rested, only diverting 
ourselves by a ride of a few miles into the country, 
reading and writing letters, fishing from the deck of 
the yacht, or catching a few smelt nearer shore. The 
Indians, who have an insignificant settlement a few 
miles back of the town, brought us fresh strawberries 
every morning, and a farmer supplied us with rich 
cream. In point of comfort, if not of luxury, therefore, 
our position was one not exactly to be despised. 



Indian Canoes, 



207 



CHAPTER XII. 




INDIAN CANOES. 

OME up, gentlemen !" cried Stigand, 
the next morning after breakfast ; 
" here are some Indians coming 
aboard." 

"What!" said Bertric, ''real, live 
Indians? Oh, my scalp!" 
*' They are only Mic-Macs," said Ruloff; *' a very gen- 
tle and harmless race. You can keep the capillaries on 
your crown until you lose them by natural process." 

" Yes, but isn't the knife of a Mic-Mac as sharp as 
that of a Choctaw ?" responded Bertric ; '' and does it 
make any difference by whom you lose your scalp, if 
only you lose it ? I don't like the noble red man. 
The roots of my hair begin to tingle at the very 
thought of him." 

" You needn't be afraid of these fellows ; they are 
as tame as sheep, and only want to sell wild straw- 
berries, and go fishing with you." 

So we all rushed up to see the Micks, as some one 
called them. They were a couple of stalwart fellows, 
tawny as tanned leather, with long black hair stream- 
ing down on their shoulders. They wore no scalps at 
their belt, neither did they brandish a tomahawk. 
** Go fishing, sir?" said one of them to me. 



2o8 Starboard and Port 

" What kind of fish do you get, John T 

" Trout— white trout, so long," making a motion 
with his hands, which left me somewhat in doubt 
whether he meant to measure off a foot or a yard. 
''Brook trout too — O, very much big; and ducks 
plenty." 

*' Where do you go to get them ?" 

** Up Dartmouth. Only five miles. Back by night." 

" How do you get there ?'* 

*' In canoe. Dad has one — I have one." 

*' Are those things easy to get into ?" asked Ruloff. 

" Yes," broke in Bertric, " and a good deal easier to 
get out of, I should judge." 

They were very pretty canoes, and altogether the 
excursion was a tempting one. Two kinds of trout, 
a long talk with real Indians, a ride in a canoe, and 
perhaps a few wood-ducks would make a very agree- 
able day's sport ; so we agreed to start the next morn- 
ing at eight. 

There is no prettier sailing than in a birch. After 
you once get used to it, and can balance yourself, the 
motion is rhythmic and delightful. It does not cut 
through the water as does an ordinary boat — with a 
constant splash at the bows — but seems to glide over 
the surface, as though it scarcely deigned to touch it. 
Light as an egg-shell, the sturdy strength of the guide 
drives it along at an inconceivable pace. 

When I was younger, and used to frequent the wilds 
of Maine, I became greatly enamored of this mode of 
traveling. I distinctly remember my first experience, 
and laugh even now when I recall the incident which 
left me a *' moist, unpleasant body." My guide — I had 



Indian Canoes. 209 

engaged him the day before— came trudging along the 
road with the birch on his shoulder. He was a man of 
rare beauty. Full six feet high, with a chest which a 
basso profondo would have envied, he handled the 
canoe as easily as you or I would a gun. When we 
reached the river bank, he gave it a light and graceful 
toss, and it fell like a huge snow-flake in the stream 
about seven feet from shore. Then, thrusting one end 
of his long paddle into the bottom of the river, and 
bearing a part of his weight on the other, he gave a 
spring and landed in the canoe, which seemed to be as 
steady under him as a man-of-war. 

The feat was performed with such apparent ease that 
the real difficulty of achieving it was hidden from my 
sight. I was tempted by an evil spirit to make the 
experiment myself. 

" Come out, Harry, and see me do that." In an in- 
stant he was by my side, handing me the paddle, but 
with just the shadow of an incredulous look on his 
face, which made me more determined than ever to 
astonish him by my agility and skill. So, imitating my 
leader, I stuck the blade of my paddle into the bottom, 
and, holding firmly to the other end, sprang. Some- 
how I think the knack of the thing is more in the 
way in which you strike than in the way in which 
you jump. I accomplished the feat to perfection until 
that critical and decisive moment when my feet touched 
the bottom of the canoe, but at that point something 
evidently went wrong. Either I had jumped too far 
or not far enough, but in less time than it requires to 
put these words on paper the canoe like a thing of life 
slipped from under my feet, and bounded off into the 



2IO Starboard and Port, 

middle of the river, while I found myself taking a 
lesson in the art of swimming rather than in that of 
canoeing. Harry waded in and recovered his birch, 
after which I made the same experiment a full dozen 
times, tumbling into the river with an ominous 
splash at nearly every attempt, but at last doing 
it well enough to insure dry clothes on another oc- 
casion. 

I remember those days so well that I would fain 
linger over them for a while. We poled up to Gordon 
Falls, with the exception of a short portage, the next 
day, and were rewarded by a fine catch of trout. It 
was a region difficult of access, and very little fished. 
The river was about a hundred feet wide, with over- 
hanging woods on either bank. At night we camped 
in the most primitive fashion. Cutting two uprights, 
about seven feet long, with a cross-piece to fit the 
crotches on the upper end, we had the framework of 
the house. Branches of trees thatched our cottage 
completely, while our mattresses were made of fragrant 
hemlock boughs. He who has never slept on a hem- 
lock bed has something yet to live for. Then we cut a 
huge pile of wood, whose crackling and cheerful blaze 
would keep us company all night, and were happy. 
We lived, too, like princes. Hard bread with fried 
pork will make a meal which hungry gods might 
relish ; and a pound trout, freshly caught, with a slice 
of pork laid carefully between his ribs, rolled up in the 
largest leaves that can be found, then laid to rest on a 
hot flat stone until it is exactly cooked, makes a dish 
which no man in his senses and with a normal appetite 
would refuse. 



Indian Canoes, 211 

But the exciting part of that experience was in run- 
ning the rapids. When traveling in quick water, and 
over somewhat uneven surfaces, it is very difficult to 
keep the canoe perfectly balanced, for the slightest pre- 
ponderance of weight on the one side or the other is 
apt to result in a wetting, if nothing more. 

We shoved off from our camping-ground into the 
smooth water of an eddy. The rapids were nearly a 
quarter of a mile long, with here and there sharp, quick 
turns to the right and left. I took my position in the 
stern, sitting in the bottom of the canoe, while Harry 
stood at the stem, pole in hand. 

"Now, sir, keep steady, and we'll take the cur- 
rent." 

"Yes, that I will ; not a muscle shall be moved, and 
I'll stop winking if you say so." 

In a moment the birch felt the quick water, and 
began to move down stream, slowly at first, but pretty 
soon as rapidly as I care to travel in that kind of con- 
veyance. We sped along with increasing velocity as 
we approached the rapids, while the trees on the banks 
seemed to be moving away from us. At one moment, 
Harry, by a movement which seemed as quick as the 
thought that prompted it, drove his long pole into the 
pebbly bottom, and gave the light canoe a shove which 
sent her into the roaring, boiling waters, and at another 
he took advantage of an eddy, and laid his course in 
smooth water for the next few rods. Once he saw a 
smooth mossy stone, just ahead, and only about three 
inches under the surface; and with a skill and energy 
which I envied at the time, and have continued to envy 
ever since, he planted the end of his pole against a 



212 Starboard and Port 

boulder, and pushed the birch bodily away. At an- 
other time, however, he was nearly caught. We were 
rushing at a headlong speed between two masses of 
rock where the water seemed to be quite deep, when 
for a single breath the bottom of the canoe stranded, 
or threatened to strand, on a piece of sunken, slippery, 
water-logged timber. Thirty seconds' stay in such a 
position and the canoe would have been hogged, as the 
sailors say when a vessel's bottom is strained out of 
shape, but Harry, who was heavier than I, ran his pole 
into the sand, and actually hung to it, only touching 
the birch with his feet to steady it, until the danger 
was passed. 

*' Harry, do you propose to go over the fall ?" I said, 
thinking that I had had pretty nearly enough of such 
exciting sport. 

*' Yes, sir, there's no help for it now," he replied. 
*' If we try to land we shall be carried against that 
rock, and then you'll have to swim ashore." 

The fall was just ahead, and I confess that at the 
time I preferred to witness the scene rather than be a 
part of it. It was no very formidable fall, being only 
about five feet high, with plenty of water, still I was 
not anxious to go over it. 

" Now, sir, steady as you can, and don't move, what- 
ever happens." 

With that he laid the pole on the thwarts, and took 
to the paddle. He got steerage way on, even in that 
quick water, by a few vigorous strokes, and the mo- 
ment of catastrophe or success approached. I can only 
remember that I saw him projected over the edge of 
the fall a few feet, while I and my end of the canoe 



Indian Canoes, . 213 

seemed to be sinking down into the caldron of seeth- 
ing waters, and the next moment I heard a splash, 
which threw the spray all over me, as we struck the 
surface below. 

"All right, sir," said Harry. 

" That was well done, old fellow," I responded ; 
"and you shall have a pound of tobacco for that 
feat." 

" Thank you, sir. I was only afraid you would move, 
and then — " 

" Well, what then, Harry ?" 

" I should have gone overboard after you, that is 
all." 

And I believe he would have done it. 

Now for Gaspe once more. The next morning, at 
the time appointed, our red men made their appear- 
ance. They were not got up in the picturesque style of 
the Indians of our imagination, nor did they have the 
euphonious names in which we take so much delight. 

" I certainly hoped one might be called at least 
Eagle Eye," said Bertric, as he put his traps into the 
birch. " How delightful it would be to go to the fa- 
mous hunting-grounds with Leaping Panther, for in- 
stance." 

" Well, what are their names ?" asked Algar. 

" This one is called John Bass, and that old fellow 
in the other canoe rejoices in the simple title of Dad," 
answered Bertric. 

Neither of our guides had eagle pinions in his hair, 
which had not seen a comb for I know not how long. 
Their heads were not ornamented with particolored 



214 Starboard and Port, 

feathers, but covered with old felt hats ; and their feet, 
so far from having on them brilliant moccasins, worked 
by the fair hands of Indian maidens, were encased in 
number eleven boots, made by machinery. The only 
scalps they wore were their own, and they grew elo- 
quent only once, when they were characterizing a cer- 
tain man who had swindled them out of two dollars 
and a half. 

"Rods all in?" 

"Aye, aye." 

" Do we want guns, John Bass ?" 

" Mebbe yes, mebbe no." 

" Then let us take the chances on that ' mebbe yes,* " 
was suggested, and we safely stowed away a rifle and 
a shot-gun. 

"Any deer, John?" 

" Praps." 

*•' Now then, boys, tumble in, and we'll be off." 

We went off in high spirits, two of us in each canoe, 
sitting on a matting on the bottom, and back to back. 
It was a lovely day, and we sang our way by the nearest 
point, when the scene that opened before us was be- 
yond description, and so grand and ravishing that we 
forgot to laugh or joke. For miles the river, in some 
places more than a mile wide, stretched its lazy length 
along the land, while high hills rose on either side, and 
far beyond the mountains with their interminable for- 
ests. The sun poured his wealth of glory on the waters, 
until the rippling waves shone like burnished steel. 
The clouds assumed all sorts of fantastic shapes, which 
one could never tire of watching, while the air was so 
full of oxygen that each fresh draught of its delicious 



Indian Canoes, 215 

coolness made us feel more grateful for mere exist- 
ence. 

We fished along the banks, hoping to catch a white 
trout or two, but none took heed of our flies. At last 
we turned a bend of the river, about six miles from the 
starting-point, and ran across a raft of timbers which 
completely blocked our passage. At first we thought 
our day'^ sport would end in disappointment and dis- 
gust, but the pluck of the guides was equal to the 
emergency. By dint of thrusting logs aside and lift- 
ing the canoes over them, we managed to work our 
way along to the unobstructed stream beyond. Then 
we cast our flies again, but still to no purpose. Neither 
the fiery red nor the white moth seemed to have any 
effect. At last I landed, determined to find my way 
alone through the woods and along the bank for a 
time, while the rest sat in the canoes thinking hard 
thoughts. There is something grand in the primeval 
forest, and the communion with nature is so complete 
at such times that one is well repaid for every effort 
made to reach this sublime stillness. I sat for a little 
behind a quantity of brushwood meditating on the 
scene, when I heard a rustle of wings just beyond. 
Peeping through the parted branches I saw four ducks 
gossiping with each other not ten rods off. They 
were perfect beauties — clumsy enough when on the 
land, but graceful as possible on the water. They were 
not aware of the danger that impended, and went on 
in their play, just as though double-barreled breech- 
loaders had not been invented. They would swim 
apart for a while intent on the food which attracted 
their attention, and anon came close together and 



2i6 Starboard and Port 

rubbed their bills against one another, uttering little 
sharp sounds, which were not as musical to my ears as 
they doubtless were to their own. 

It seemed too bad to make havoc among them, 
but the hunter's instinct was too strong in me to be 
checked long ; so, without the crackling of a single 
twig, I crept within sight of the canoes, when I 
waved my handkerchief at Fletch, who immediately 
took the cue and landed with his Scott. 

" Hush, boy, or they will hear you. Four ducks 
are sitting on the stream just beyond that clump of 
bushes. Creep up as gently as though you were tread- 
ing on velvet, and we'll have a good dinner." 

I do like to see a good hunter crawl up to his game. 
He takes no step without first looking to see where to 
plant his foot. The slightest noise and his chances are 
lost. Fletch knew his business by heart, and in a mo- 
ment we were both looking at the beauties through 
the bushes. 

" Wait till they put their heads together, Fletch, 
which they are sure to do in a minute or two, and then 
let them have one barrel. After that, if one escapes, 
take him on the wing." 

Oh, that breathless, anxious moment, when the hunt- 
er is taking sight, and before he presses his finger on 
the fatal trigger. I can never get over the impres- 
sion that it is the one important moment of a man's 
life. Success is happiness, and defeat is untold misery, 
when the smoke clears away, and you look over the 
field. 

Fletch is a careful boy, and a good shot. Just at 
the instant when the ducks were gathered into a heap. 



Indian Canoes, 217 

possibly to listen to some bit of fresh gossip, I heard a 
report. Immediately after, another. Rushing to the 
bank, I saw two ducks lying very still on the water, 
while the third had just dropped with a delightful 
splash about five rods off. 

'* Three oi*t of four is good shooting," I said with 
a shout. " They are noble fellows, and shot through 
the head. Won't we have a feast to - morrow, 
though." 

He was chagrined that he had lost the fourth bird ; 
but who ever saw a hunter perfectly satisfied ? 

" No fish here, John Bass," I said to the guide. 
" We haven't had a single bite yet, and I don't believe 
you ever saw a trout in this stream." 

" Oh, in winter plenty trout, big fellows ; big as 
that," and he put his hand on his paddle to indicate 
a measurement which might have suited a shark, but 
which never applied to a trout. 

" Praps up there," he continued, pointing to a little 
side stream on the left. 

" We'll go there, then ; it's better to have a * praps ' 
than a certainty the other way." 

We had no sooner struck into this stream than the 
indications took a favorable turn. I chanced to cast 
my fly on a pool when a good-sized trout rose to it, 
and hooked himself. From that moment our listless- 
ness was gone. Bertric saw ahead of us what he 
thought to be a succession of deep pools, and as we 
could not get to them without wading, we plunged 
into the water up to our waists. 

*' Just look there, fellows. Did you ever see any 
thing like it ? why, it's a perfect aquarium." 

K 



2i8 Starboard and Port, 

It was a sight to stir the blood in the heart of the 
most placid fisherman. There were three successive 
pools, apparently about nine or ten feet deep, over- 
hung completely by branches which rendered it dif- 
ficult to cast a fly, and in each one there were from 
six to a dozen trout, some weighing about three 
quarters of a pound, and a few running close up to 
two pounds. 

First Stigand dropped a red hackle just over their 
noses as lightly as a feather, when two fish rose to it, 
and in the melee neither was hooked. Then Bertric 
threw his fly up stream, and let it float down within 
reach. Immediately a trout worth having was fast. 
He was too big to haul directly in, but after being 
played for two or three minutes he quietly succumbed 
to fate, and was captured. 

We stayed by those pools for an hour and a half. 
When the fish became wary we changed our flies, and 
still continued the deceit. Twice w^e rested the pools 
for ten minutes, and ended the day's sport by bringing 
to creel as handsome a mess of trout as I have ever 
seen caught. 

By five o'clock, however, we gave up, and turned our 
faces homeward. The air was getting chilly, and we 
were thoroughly soaked. 

No one who has not experienced it can imagine the 
beauty of afternoon colors among the mountains and 
on the w^aters. A kind of sombre gray pervades every 
thing, and one naturally settles himself down to rev- 
erie. We were all the more inclined to do this, since we 
were both tired and hungry. As I sat in the canoe, 
Fletch asked the guide some questions about deer. 



Indian Canoes, 219 

and for an hour, or until we had nearly reached the 
yacht, I went off into dreamland, reviving the scenes 
of years agone, when I killed my first deer in the 
White Mountains. That morning two dogs had been 
taken into the woods before daybreak, and by seven 
we heard their distant bay. They were on a deer's 
track evidently, and chasing him to the water. My 
friend and I had taken our positions on the grassy 
bank of the Ammonoosuc, just opposite the roadway 
of the game. I had dropped into a half-doze when I 
heard the bushes part on the other bank, and saw a 
fine fat buck rush into the water to cool himself. He 
had fallen on his knees apparently, for nothing but his 
head was visible. I sat watching him, when my friend 
said, somewhat rudely, " Why in the world don't you 
shoot, man ?" 

The truth was, I had forgotten all about shooting, 
and was engaged in admiring his graceful outlines and 
motions. 

It was the first deer I had ever seen in the woods, 
and I was no exception to the general rule that every 
body misses his first shot at such large game. I ran 
my eye along the barrel of the gun and fired. The 
bullet did not probably go within a rod of him. At 
any rate, he stood up amazed for a moment, and then 
started for cover with a series of bounds which were 
so rhythmic that I have thought since it was a cruelty 
to shoot him. But I was on my mettle, having so dis- 
graced myself the minute before, and this time took 
careful aim, and blew the top of his head off. He 
dropped into the rapid current, when I rushed in and 
dragged him ashore. 



220 Starboard and Port 

" Halloo ! There's the Nettie!' and in ten minutes 
we were aboard. 

" Ah Boo, is supper ready ?" 
" All ready, sir." 
** So are we." 



Enough, and Home, 221 




CHAPTER XIII. 

ENOUGH, AND HOME. 

" Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, 
His first, best country ever is at home," 

Goldsmith. 

UR stay in Gaspe was very delight- 
ful, but we had been so long from 
home that we were not sorry to 
turn the bows of the Nettie in that 
direction. I hoped, as I have al- 
ready said, to be able to land on 
the romantic and, in many respects, remarkable island 
of Anticosti, but time, the inexorable, would not al- 
low. I have dreams of some day cruising along the 
whole coast of Labrador, east of the Mingan Islands, 
and making a bold push through the Strait of Belle 
Isle, that I may luxuriate for a while in the vicin- 
ity of icebergs — those huge monsters of the deep 
which are at once our terror and delight. One can 
not go every where, however, in two months, so it 
was with a serene feeling of satisfaction that we saw 
the anchor tripped to the sailors' song, and jerked to 
the cat-head with the last word of the last line. 

" Up with the jib !" cried the captain, with a certain 
gleeful ring in his tones. Then, turning to us, '* Home- 



2 2 2 Starboard and Port, 

ward bound, gentlemen ; our keel will soon be in Chris- 
tian waters, and I shall be happy." 

It was with a sad kind of feeling that we said our 
silent good-bye to the wondrous scenery that opened 
as we passed the mouth of Dartmouth River, for there 
is about such landscapes a grandeur all their own. 

In the course of half an hour, for the wind was light, 
we rounded the ugly little boat that does duty as a 
light-ship, and in the course of the next hour had 
passed Douglastown, sending our farewell wishes 
ashore, and were making our way across Mai Bay. 

" Rain, sure as you live," said Edwards, coming aft and 
pointing to a black mass of clouds in the southwest. 

It was not a rain, but a pour. It seemed as though 
the bottom of the upper sea had suddenly dropped 
out, and let every thing through at once — a perfect 
wall of water was moving toward us. As the heavy 
drops fell in the smooth sea, they made a queer, dull, 
rushing sound, and in a few minutes every thing was 
drenched. Perce Rock and Bonaventura were only a 
couple of miles off, but they were entirely shut out 
from view. 

That night, however, was a perfect marvel. The 
clouds had all disappeared with the setting sun, and 
the troops of stars came out one after another, until it 
seemed as though, even in infinite space, there was not 
room enough for all, and yet they continued to come 
out in innumerable hosts, making the heavens glitter 
with a million million points of light. 

The wind was gentle, and just fanned us along, but 
at about eleven it freshened, and at one it rose to a 
gale. The top-hamper was all snugly stowed, but it 



Enough, and Home, 223 

became necessary to call all hands to reef the mainsail 
and take the bonnet off the jib. 

We rushed by the Bay of Chaleur, and by daylight 
made Miscou. The wind grew stronger as the sun 
rose, and though we had planned to keep to the east- 
ward of North Point, and sail through the pleasant 
waters of Northumberland Strait, stopping at Pictou 
for a day or two, we were driven so far out to sea that 
we were compelled to go back the same way we came, 
along the northern shore of Prince Edward's. We 
passed a large number of fishing schooners lying 
to under trysails, but managed to hold our course 
until we got under the lee. 

It is not necessary to describe the home trip in de- 
tail. We sailed through the beautiful and quiet wa- 
ters of the Gut of Canso, stopping at Port Mulgrave to 
get a huge package of letters, which were more cheer- 
ing than can be imagined. Across Chedebucto Bay, 
and into the Little Gut of Canso next, where we 
anchored, as it was almost a dead calm. There we 
got ice, fish, and lobsters, and had made preparations 
to remain all night, when the water rippled to the 
eastward, foretelling a stiff breeze from that direction. 

" I fear we are going to have a rough night," said 
the captain. '' This wind comes up in an ugly sort of 
way, and my impression is we shall get a heavy blow 
before morning." 

" Well, Cap, we can stand a blow as well as any one ; 
so get your anchor up and we'll be off." 

*' It won't be pleasant to run into an old-fashioned 
gale," he replied, *' and it looks now as if we were go- 
ing to have one." 



224 Starboard arid Port, 

I do not pretend to be weatherwise, but quite other- 
wise. I was anxious to get home, however, since we 
had started, and felt that if it were a three days' storm 
that was coming up, we could take the first end of it, 
and possibly get to Halifax before the gale had fairly 
got under way. 

'' No matter, Cap, let's get away and take our 
chances." 

So off we went. When we were almost opposite 
Roaring Bull, the wind began to gather itself up for a 
hard rough-and-tumble blow. The breeze came in a 
hesitating sort of way, as though it were pushed along 
by an immense quantity behind, that had not yet 
shown itself or its power. The swell of the ocean be- 
gan to break into white-caps, which after a while made 
one sheet of foam far as the eye could reach. I re- 
pented having given the order to get under way, and 
heartily wished myself safely at anchor again ; but 
regrets are always vain, and when one starts it is a 
bad sign to go back. A return was suggested, but it 
looked too much like a defeat, so I laughed at the 
croakings I heard, though I was as much afraid as any 
one, and promised in a boastful sort of way to take an 
early breakfast in Halifax the next morning. 

At supper the yacht pitched so it was impossi- 
ble to sit at table. Ah Boo braced himself as he 
poured the tea, and the gentlemen were compelled 
to hold their cups in their hands. Even then a sud- 
den lurch would empty the cup completely, and tum- 
ble the victim of untoward circumstances on the 
nearest transom, or throw him against the partition 
of the state-room. 



Enough^ and Home, 225 

" Old Neptune is on his high horse to-night," said 
Bertric. 

" Yes, we'll have all we want before morning," re- 
sponded Rulofif. 

" Humph, I've got more than I want now," said 
Stigand, as he dropped a cup of hot tea in his 
lap. 

By ten o'clock it was as dark as pitch. It was 
cloudy and threatening rain, and the wind was blow- 
ing a perfect gale. It was fair though, coming in over 
the larboard quarter, so that we could rush along with 
start-sheets — and rush along we did. If ever a vessel 
felt herself in a hurry, the Nettie did that night. She 
brushed the water from her bows, and leaped like a 
thing of life from wave to wave. 

"There was music in her sail, 
As it swelled before the gale, 
And a dashing at her prow 
As it cleft the waves below; 
And the good ship sped along, 
Scudding free." 

'' How fast, Cap ?" 

** Well, a good twelve-knot." 

" Good ; then my prediction will prove true, and I 
will eat my breakfast bacon in the Halifax Hotel at 
nine in the morning." 

I got my wolf-robe, and had just made myself com- 
fortable, when I heard — 

** All hands on deck to reef the mainsail." You 
can easily see that it must be blowing hard, when with 
the wind on our quarter it became necessary to shorten 
sail; but such was the case. Ten of us worked away 

K2 



2 26 Starboard and Port 

for as much as thirty minutes before the last reefing- 
point was tied, and then the yacht trotted along at a 
slashing pace, but with a much steadier gait. 

We all went below and slept soundly until daybreak. 
At seven Edwards said to me — 

" That's Chebucto Light, ten miles ahead of us." 

" What do you mean ?" I replied. '' If that is Che- 
bucto Light, then we are not more than fifteen miles 
from Halifax." 

" Just about fifteen," he replied, quietly. '' Supper in 
Canso and breakfast in Halifax ; well, that will cer- 
tainly do to put down in our log-book." 

" Did you ever accomplish such a feat before, Ed- 
wards ?" 

'' No, and I don't want to again. I've been up all 
night, and the whole fore-deck has been one sheet of 
foam." 

At nine o'clock we entered Halifax Harbor, and 
came to anchor. Just then the wind was blowing with 
such ferocity that it fairly lifted boards from a pile on 
a wharf near us, and flung them around in the most 
reckless manner. We had had enough of it, and 
were glad to get to a place of safety, for had we been 
out longer we should certainly have been blown to 
pieces. At noon it seemed as though all the furies 
were let loose at once. The city was filled with clouds 
of dust, and every once in a while we heard the crash 
of a shutter that had been broken off its hinges, and 
was being carried on a free expedition, while the slam- 
ming of doors was heard above the garrison band, and 
there were so many hats in the air that one could easily 
suppose It to be a gala occasion, on which every En- 



Enough^ mid Home, 227 

glishman was making this demonstration in honor of 
his queen. 

We remained in HaHfax several days to have the 
yacht painted, and snugged up for the reception of 
friends at home. When we did start we were made 
thoroughly and unpleasantly acquainted with the tra- 
ditional fogs, which love this shore so dearly that they 
seldom leave it. We had hardly left Sambro Light 
before we lost all view of the land. For two mortal 
days and nights we tumbled about in the ground- 
swell, without wind enough to keep us steady, and be- 
came so demoralized that we were nearly ready to 
sink into untimely graves for the sake of change. 
Once the fog lifted, and kindly permitted us to run for 
the night into Port Mouton, where we enjoyed a quiet 
anchorage, and a very unsuccessful search for any thing 
in the shape of bird or beast. At another time we ran 
close upon the rocks just off Shelburne Harbor, and es- 
caped them only by putting the wheel hard down at 
the cry from the lookout — 

" Breakers ahead !" 

Shelburne Harbor, where we anchored that night, 
is one of the loveliest spots conceivable. The river 
is perhaps a mile wide, and very picturesque. For a 
summer residence it would be unequaled. The scenery 
is varied, in some places undulating and wooded, and 
in others rocky, abrupt, and rugged, with huge cliffs 
bending like giants over the sea, while the broad deep 
lies beyond in full view. I felt when I saw the hun- 
dreds of cords of drift-wood floating lazily down the 
waters of the Penobscot some years ago, what a pity it 
is that the poor people of New York Hve so far off. 



2 28 Starboard and Port 

They could have their winter's supply of wood for the 
asking. But, by some strange law, the people and the 
wood are so widely separated that they are of no use 
to each other. So I felt concerning the Nova Scotia 
real estate. There were head-lands, bluffs, huge rocks, 
not to be imitated by art. Woods, ocean, every thing 
in short to make property valuable, but nobody to buy, 
and nobody to enjoy it. These exquisite sites are so 
far removed from the people that they must needs 
be satisfied with the fever and ague of Staten Island. 
When we get the means of bodily transportation which 
corresponds with the transportation of messages by 
electricity. Nova Scotia will receive her just tribute of 
praise as one of the loveliest shores on the continent. 

After leaving Shelburne, with its first-class light- 
house, perhaps the best on the coast, we ran for Sable 
Light, with Algar at the wheel. Every thing was 
moist and disagreeable. Our clothing felt as though 
it had been recently washed and imperfectly wrung 
out ; and we were ready for any thing in the way of a 
sensation. A light breeze gave us start-sheets, and the 
main-boom hung well outboard. All at once I heard 
a 'VBy Jove" from Algar, as he put the helm up with 
all his might. 

" What's the matter ?" I cried, jumping up and drop- 
ping the damp book I had been trying to read. 

'' Just look there," he answered, pointing to the port 
bow. " Breakers, as sure as you live." 

I looked, and within twenty feet of the yacht was a 
huge black whale asleep. We passed so close to him 
that the end of the raain-boom was over his back. 

If we had rvin into him the public would have been 



Enough^ and Home, 229 

spared the infliction of reading this account, and a full 
dozen life-insurance policies would have suddenly come 
due. 

Ruloff rushed on deck gun in hand, and let the fellow 
have a charge of No. i shot right in the hump. It did 
not probably hurt him seriously, but it evidently woke 
him up, for he slashed his flukes around in the most 
preposterous manner, making the white foam fly in 
the air like a snow-storm. 

The next day we crossed the Bay of Fundy. We 
knew we must be in that locality, for in no other place 
do the waters make such a bobbery. The steady swell 
gave place to a most unpleasant chop sea, and the 
Nettie was so surprised at the new condition of affairs 
that she jumped about in a very disagreeably suggest- 
ive manner for twelve long hours, during which time 
we hardly knew whether to be sick or not, but main- 
tained a dogged silence about our interior condition 
which left our meals uncared for and untouched. 

The next day the sun came out — blessed sight ! — and 
at noon we took our bearings. Edwards walked the 
deck to cogitate upon the various courses we had 
sailed, and the number of miles we had probably made, 
then descended to the cabin to put his prophetic fin- 
ger on the spot on the chart where we actually were, 
or where we ought to be. This guess-work seemed a 
little marvelous to us landsmen, and we accepted his 
assertions with a large pinch of salt. John, however, 
had got his quadrant from his box, taken his observa- 
tions, pulled his Bowditch from its hiding-place, and in 
half an hour, compasses in hand, pricked the exact 
point on the chart which at that moment the Nettie 
occupied. 



230 Starboard and Port, t 

" Where are we ?" asked Edwards, who was willing 
to set his guess against all the nautical instruments 
in the world. 

" Right there," answered John, pointing to a place 
twenty miles south-southeast from Manhegin. 

" Right there, hey ; well, let me see — I said we 
were there" — pointing to another place not seven 
miles by chart measurement from John's calculation. 

The instinct of the true sailor is a very wonderful 
thing. It is a mystery to me how he can keep his 
reckoning so accurately. During the days and nights 
when we had been sailing in a fog, without a glimpse 
of land, Edwards had kept every tack in mind, the 
speed we had made, and the probable effect of the 
currents, and had guessed within seven miles of our 
exact position. 

'' We shall see land in an hour," he said, triumph- 
antly, as he came up on deck. Not one of us believed 
a word of it. But before the hour was up the lookout 
cried from the maintop — 

" Land ho !" 

" Where away ?" 

'•'■ Two points off the starlDoard bow." 

Then v/e could see in the dim distance a sort of haze 
on the horizon, which in fifteen minutes assumed the 
indistinct outlines of an island. 

" What land is it ?" I asked. 

** Manhegin," replied Edwards. 

And, sure enough, Manhegin it was. 

All night we drifted toward Portland Lights, and In 
the morning passed Boone Island, headed for the 
Shoals. We had written from Gaspe that we would 



Enough, and Home, 231 

meet our friends at the Shoals on the fifteenth, Satur- 
day ; and by nine o'clock on the sixteenth, Sunday, 
we dropped anchor by the side of the Idler in front 
of the Appledore. 

Three ladies are a serious matter on board a yacht ; 
but three ladies and a small boy only five years of age, 
who is constantly leaning over the rail, or trying to 
climb the shrouds, and who requires at least four pairs 
of watchful eyes to see that he does not become food 
for the fishes, is certainly a very serious matter. I 
wonder more and more every year, however, that the 
ladies do not take possession of the fleet. It would 
be beneficial in every way. In the first place, it would 
make the cabin of the yacht more like home ; and, in 
the second place, it would cultivate a love of healthful 
pleasure which is not hostile to the most delicate re- 
finement. American women are notably wanting in 
physical culture. It is seldom we see robust and 
ruddy health in the other sex. The woman of 
American society knows more, is far more interesting, 
and is acknowledged to be handsomer — that is to my 
mind the most dignified word with which to express 
good looks — than her sisters in any part of the world, 
but it is rare to find one in perfect health. Sick-head- 
aches and neuralgia, caused by over -cerebration, are 
among the most common complaints, and one hears 
of these troubles so frequently that he begins at last 
to feel that the diseases mentioned are among the 
original and normal elements of which the average 
woman is constituted. 

The causes of this degeneration are visible to the 
most casual observation ; too early entrance into 



232 Starboard and Port 

society, overcrowding of the brain at school, a prem- 
ature development of matrimonial ambitions, and no 
exercise at all. 

If the wives of all yachtsmen would take possession 
of their husbands' craft, peaceably if possible, forcibly 
if necessary, and insist on sailing the main with their" 
liege lords, a taste of out-door life might be diffused 
over the general public which would paint the pale 
cheeks of our girls with a ruddy richness which no 
rouge supplies, and create a public opinion in favor of 
health which would exorcise these ghosts and goblins 
of neuralgia and headache which haunt so many of our 
homes. 

But I am too near the end of my voyage to begin 
to preach. I have kept out of the Sleepy Hollow of 
sermonizing so long that I will not yield to the Instinct 
at this stage. 

Nothing that need be mentioned happened on the 
home trip from the Shoals until the morning when we 
left that quaintest of all quaint places, Provlncetown. 
We had landed there early in the afternoon, and had 
spent three or four hours in exploring the mysteries 
of its single street, In looking over the curiosities in its 
museum, in regarding the wonderful view to be had 
from the top of its only tower, and in recalling the 
various incidents connected with the landing of the 
Pilgrims on what Mrs. Hemans is pleased to call " a 
stern and rock-bound coast." Stern certainly it is, as 
we found to our sorrow the next day, but so far is it 
from being rock-bound that it is only defended by 
sand-bars, and a rock would be a natural curiosity. 

Be it known that I had been especially careful to 



Enough, and Home, 233 

select good weather for this trip, because I wanted the 
ladies to become acquainted with the sea in her most 
coy and joyous moods. I had in my mind's eye cer- 
tain excursions to be developed in the future, which 
would seem very plausible to the feminine mind if 
their present voyage should present only smooth 
water and fanning breezes. 

My heart sank within me, however, the next morn- 
ing, when I found that the captain had weighed anch- 
or, and that we were already beyond Race Point, and 
heading for the Highlands. The wind was blowing a 
stiff breeze, the Atlantic swell was rolling in, and once 
in a while curling up into white-caps, which made me 
fear that the only song to be sung that day would be 
^' Home, sweet Home." 

I began to remonstrate very vigorously with the 
captain for bringing us out in such weather, but he 
assured me that in a couple of hours at most we 
should be running along with a free wind, and that we 
should then feel very little motion. I rushed below, 
and persuaded my wife, who was just beginning to feel 
that peculiar dizziness which is premonitory of more 
vigorous and active symptoms, to hurry with her 
dressing at any cost, and get on deck at the earliest 
possible moment. Any delay would be fatal. She 
was in that suggestive condition when she seemed to 
think that it was hardly worth while to make any ef- 
fort ; but I pleaded and begged and besought, until the 
boots were buttoned and the hat was on. Then with 
uncertain gait she made her way on deck, where I had 
prepared, of wolf-skin and blankets, a cozy little nest 
out of the reach of the spray. 



2 34 Starboard and Port 

I mildly suggested breakfast in the most far off and 
remote way of which my vocabulary was capable, but 
the prompt and decided manner in which such a pos- 
sibility as eating was received sealed my lips. 

I did my best after that to get the other ladies on 
deck, but my efforts were vain. One lay still and si- 
lent, with closed eyes and a patient expression of suf- 
fering which indicated only too plainly that Father 
Neptune was putting on the thumbscrews. She was 
like those whom Donne describes so vividly, who, 

" Coffined in their cabins, lie equally 
Grieved that they are not dead." 

The other, surprised and chagrined beyond expression 
at the possibility of sickness, with a determination 
which would supply a martyr with material to endure 
the blazing fagot, dressed in an intermittent sort 
of way, but in a way so very intermittent that she 
was not seen on deck until four o'clock in the after- 
noon. 

Cape Cod Is seldom an easy point to pass, but at this 
particular time the Old Atlantic seemed to be doing 
his best to make things uncomfortable. The wind 
blew furiously, and the sea had on a regular English 
Channel chop. 

It made me a little indignant, however, that Will- 
iam, who had left his business to enjoy the home run 
with us, maintained such equanimity in the surge. It 
seemed no more than right that a landsman should 
be downright sick ; but, though once or twice his lips 
grew just a bit purple, he wheeled into line with the 
old sailors and laughed at the storm. To test him, I 



Enough^ and Home, 235 

invited him below to lunch. For a single moment he 
hesitated, as though uncertain whether it were better 
to 

"Bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of," 

and then descended to the depths, where he com- 
pletely vindicated himself by eating a cold mutton- 
chop. 

When we were in the trough of the sea, I, sitting in 
the cockpit, could not see the top of the Highlands, 
only a couple of miles to leeward. The water came 
on deck in such profuse quantities that every thing 
floated a part of the time, and the sailors were chiefly 
occupied in paddling after stray bits of property which 
were trying to get overboard. 

I noticed several times that the water struck the lee 
boat — our best boat of course — with such force that she 
was lifted up a few inches, and then came down with 
a shock which bent the davits in a very disagreeable 
way. While the captain and I were standing to- 
gether and talking of the prospects, he suddenly cried 
out — 

" Just look there ! that lee boat is going !" 

And, sure enough, her hour had come. 

The forward line gave way, and she went down bows 
first. Why is it that every thing goes wrong end first 
in this life ? If that boat had dropped stern first we 
could have saved her. But she must needs go down 
bows first, in consequence of which, as we were going 
nine knots, she instantly filled with water, and then 
gave a wrench and twist to the other davit which 
made me feel for a moment that the whole rail would 



236 Starboard and Port 

be torn off. We did our best to save her, but our 
efforts were as nothing in that heavy sea. At last I 
gave orders to cut her away, and the next minute she 
was floating astern. We had the gloomy satisfaction 
of knowing that every thing belonging to her — oars, 
thole-pins, backboard, sponges, etc. — were in her, and 
that whoever picked her up would get every thing 
that was needed for immediate use. 

This little incident created quite a stir on board. 
My wife lost at once all signs of seasickness, and 
watched the proceedings with as steady a nerve as 
though she were standing on the land. The suffer- 
ers below heard the noise and the cries, and remarked 
that it made very little difference to them what was 
happening on deck ; that they should neither be very 
much frightened nor yet very sorry if the Nettie her- 
self should take it into her capricious head to go be- 
low. Then I knew that the matter was serious. 

However, after a few hours of bad weather we ran 
into the Sound, and by four o'clock were snugly and 
safely anchored in the harbor of Edgarton, and this 
time in the pleasant company of the Phantom. 

Nothing that need be mentioned happened after 
this, and we reached New York with very pleasant 
memories of the past. 

The whole cruise to the St. Lawrence was one long 
delight, and I am looking forward to another trip, 
across Newfoundland — that unknown territory which 
has charms all its own. 

Dear Reader, now that I have finished this very 
pleasant task, I feel that I have but poorly described 



Enough, and Home, 27,7 

the exquisite pleasure we all enjoyed as we passed 
through these varied experiences on sea and land. 
It only remains for me to hope that you will some 
day take the same trip ; and may the summer sea 
have fair skies, and the hospitable people all along 
shore treat you with that unstinted kindness which, 
was meted out to us. I bid you all good-night, with 
the prayer that you may sing throughout the voyage 
of life the song of the poet — 

" How sweet to rove, 
"With such a beaming sky above, 
O'er the dark sea, whose murmurs seem 
Like fairy music in a dream ! 
No sound is heard to break the spell 
Except the water's gentle swell, 
"Whilst midnight, like a mimic day, 
Shines on to guide our moonlit way." 




GEORGE ELIOrS NOVELS. 

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ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. i2mo, Cloth, $i 50. 

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Harper & Brothers also publish Cheaper Editions of George Eliot's 

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Few •women— no living woman, Indeed— have so ninch strength as " George 
Eliot," and, more than that, she never allows it to degenerate into coarseness. 
With all her so-called "masculine" vigor, she has a feminine tenderness, which 
is nowhere shown more plainly than in her descriptions of children. —ijos^ow 
TraTiscript. 

She looks out upon the world with the most entire enjoyment of all the good 
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there is in it to pity. But she never either whimpers over the sorrowful lot of 
man, or snarls and chuckles over his follies and littlenesses and impotence. — 
Saturday Review, London. 

George "Eliot's" novels belong to the enduring literature of our country- 
durable not for the fashionableness of its pattern, but for the texture of its stuff. 
—Examiner, London. 



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